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Willson House

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1930, Jens F. Larson. 1 Shadow Ln., City of Rutland
  • (Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography)

Sharing the more suburban character of upper Grove Street, the house that former New York City businessman Earl Willson built for his retirement was designed to fit into a picturesque vision of a rural landscape. Its Hanover, New Hampshire, architect Jens F. Larson is best known for formal Colonial Revival work on campuses, as at the Lyndon Institute (CA8). Here, though, he produced a large and rambling stone “farmhouse,” establishing an informal character with an L-shaped plan and an octagonal tower with a French-looking peaked copper roof and a Quebecois cock weather vane. This effect is enhanced by the fieldstone of house and garden walls, large gable-end chimneys, random-colored slate roofs, double-height bay windows, and the arcaded loggia with a drive-through between residential and service structures. The inclusion of such Georgian features as a two-story columnar portico and keystoned ocular windows conveys that this was the high-style farmhouse of a gentleman.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson
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Data

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Citation

Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson, "Willson House", [Rutland, Vermont], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VT-01-RU18.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Vermont

Buildings of Vermont, Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 73-74.

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