925 BUSHNELL ST (AND 604 HARRISON)

925 BUSHNELL ST (AND 604 HARRISON)

Rock

Beloit

1892

1981

house

Queen Anne

Clapboard

No

An architecturally significant example of the Queen Anne style in Beloit, this three story frame house marks the division between the Near East Side Historic District on the plain to its rear, and the less cohesive, mixed use area below it, as one proceeds uphill on Harrison Avenue. The house is composed of two intersecting gabled units joined at the southeast corner by a three story polygonal tower which culminates in abulbous roof. On the east elevation, enclosed porches receded into the second and third stories while the upper portion of the facade overhangs a recessed entry. To balance that, the south elevation features projecting enclosed porches on the first and second stories. On the tower, upper story shingesl wrap outward around the volume while the first story clapboards receded into the chamfered bay. Although the ornament is held to a minumum, Eastlake-detail can be seen on the turned porch posts, the colonette mullions on the tower bay window, and in the brackets under the pedimented gable peak. But the essential character of the house is formed by its volumetric quality: the sheathing of clapboard and shingles seems to enclose volumes like a thin membrane, wrapping around deeply recessed porches and then around projecting towers and porches, creating a sense of interior space. The exterior material itself provides the houses' most assertive decorative scheme: fanlike shingles, fish scale shingles, horizontal bands of shingles alternating with each other and with the narrow clapboarding on the first floor. The continuous flow of material is reminiscent of the Shingle Style, but the house is most notably a highly individual statement on Queen Anne motifs. Constructed in 1892, this house was first owned by Moses Reitler, and later owned by his son, Eugene Reitler, who were Beloit clothing merchants. Moses Reitler was a member of Beloit's small 19th century community of german Jews. He married a woman from Maine, and his descendents were long prominent in Beloit.

(A) Beloit Tax Rolls, RCHS Archives. (B) Beloit City Directory, 1906. (C) Telephone interview with Robert H. Irrmann, September 17, 1981.

Near East Side Historic District

Jan 07, 1983

Jan 01, 1989

Yes