A quirky historic house in my hometown changed hands recently, and a zoning change possibly imperils the house. During my childhood, the dwelling was a curious and delightful aspect of the landscape as seen from the backseat window. The one-story house wasn’t like any of the other dwellings I saw, and from my vantage point it appeared as an odd, yet endearing doll’s house. When the house went on the market last year, I took the opportunity to go inside and satisfy what is now a professional (and insatiable) inquisitiveness about historic buildings.
The house in question. The perspective is very close to how I viewed it as a child.
I was surprised and smitten.
Facade of the Parsons House.
The house is built with hollow clay tile, a material promoted in the early 20th century as fireproof and “the most economic form of permanent construction.”* Also known as structural clay tile and clay block, the extruded clay is generally rectangular in shape with hollow cavities on the interior, and can be laid like bricks or concrete blocks. When the terracotta is fired so the clay is hardened, it comes out in shades of yellow, red, cream, and in the case of the Parsons house, orange.
Examples of hollow clay tile, from the 1914 Fireproof houses of moderate cost : Natco hollow tile, by the National Fire Proofing Company.
The distinctive exterior walls give the house its faintly exotic appearance, which is strengthened by the stepped parapet walls, clad in clay tile coping, which are the most obvious nod to the Spanish Revival style influence of the dwelling.
A detail of one of the facade parapet walls.
While the exterior appearance sets the house apart, the interior could belong to any Colonial Revival style or bungalow house of the 1920s and 1930s. The left (west) side of the house is given over to the public rooms: after you enter through the enclosed porch, the living room leads into the dining room (with 15-light French doors separating the two rooms), and then onto the kitchen.
Looking south from the dining room toward the enclosed front porch on the facade of the house.
The shouldered chimney on the west elevation of the house is flanked by two high windows, an arrangement familiar to anyone who has ever stepped inside a bungalow. Hardwood floors, ceramic door knobs, timeless woodwork such as two-panel doors (with a chair rail in the dining room), and light-filled rooms could belong to any traditional historic house from the first half of the 20th century.
The fireplace in the primary bedroom.
The east side of the house contains the private space of the house, namely two bedrooms separated by a bathroom, with a narrow hallway providing access to the rooms.
The house is built on a stone foundation and has a full basement. It is a compact dwelling, and after going through the house, my curiosity was not sated. Who built this singular house and why? It’s the only historic Spanish Revival-influenced house I know of in Mt. Sterling, so it wasn’t copying from a nearby neighbor.
The Calpella is an example of a Spanish-inspired house plan put out by the Home Builders Catalog in 1928.
My parents recalled the house as belonging to John W. Jewell, who ran a Gulf service station at the corner of US 60 and the bypass in Mt. Sterling. That service station (now gone) predated the construction of the bypass and was roughly 230 yards west of the house.
The former service station of John Jewell. Image from Google streetview; building is no longer extant.
But when Jewell purchased the parcel – then outside the city limits – in 1945, this house was already there. A little bit of deed research led me to Sudie and Roger Parsons, who purchased the four-acre lot from Dr. G.M. Horton in 1930.
From the January 13, 1915 edition of The Mt. Sterling Advocate.
Horton, a local veterinarian, had owned the property since 1919. It may have been the back portion of the land he owned on West High Street, west of White Avenue. Since the property was not within the city limits, there is no coverage of it on the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. There was a house on this parcel, for one is shown on the 1922 plat of Vista Court (on the east side of this parcel), but the history of that building is murky and it is not the house standing on the lot today. (More on that later.)
Section of the 1922 plat of Vista Court, showing the subject parcel and the house that stood there at the time.
Interestingly, there is a connection between the Parsons house and Horton via building materials. In 1924, the Mt. Sterling Advocate reported that Horton and Dr. J.F. Reynolds had begun construction of a “modern home” on West High Street, built of concrete blocks. Horton and Reynolds owned a concrete plant in Eastern Kentucky, and the two-story house would be the first constructed of concrete blocks in Mt. Sterling.**
From the November 1, 1928 edition of The Mt. Sterling Advocate.
Sadly, the newspapers did not reveal much about the Parsons family, but in the 1930 census, Roger Parsons was listed as a carpenter who worked in the building industry. The Parsons lived at 137 W. Locust Street, a two-story frame building located on the site of the current post office.
As a builder, Roger Parsons would have been familiar with the plethora of catalogs touting plans and styles for American houses. The Home Builders Catalog of 1928 included a slew of Spanish Revival-influenced houses, some described as “Moorish.” Most of the houses were small, and one-story, with a stucco finish and could be built with or without a basement. The Celilo and the Castana plans, shown below, share similarities with the layout of the Parsons house.
From the 1928 Home Builders Catalog.
The Spanish Revival style was popular in many communities, so why not Mt. Sterling?
As to the why of the hollow concrete tiles…in February 1932, the fire department answered a call to “the home of Roger Parsons at the end of Vista Court.” The newspaper account went on to state that “there is no fire hydrant on the hill and the department lost considerable time in getting hose laid and into action. The home and contents were a complete loss, estimated at $7,500.”*** This is roughly equivalent to over $180,000.00 today.
The day before, some electric wiring had been redone in the cellar of the burned house, and this was thought to be the cause of the fire.
Circa 1930s Natco Hollow Tile advertisement.
In May 1932, Roger Parsons was working on the construction of a “beautiful buff brick home to replace the home recently burned on his home site on Winchester Pike.”****
Wouldn’t you want the security of a fireproof home too?
West elevation of the Parsons house.
Four years later, in 1936, the Parsons put their “beautiful Spanish type suburban home” up for auction. The dwelling had a large front screened-in porch and a screened-in back porch, and 800 feet of water pipe was laid through the center of the lot. There would be no more delays obtaining water should a fire strike again!
From the October 15, 1936 edition of The Mt. Sterling Advocate.
The furniture – all new, with “no antiques or junk, all up-to-date furniture – was sold as well (cash only).
East and rear (north) elevations of house.
I’m not sure if what appears to be a porte-cochere on the east side of the house was the screened-in front porch, or if the enclosed porch that now acts as an entry hallway was originally screened rather than enclosed. The rear porch, seen in the above photo, was definitely enclosed later to form additional conditioned space.
The new occupant was the family of F.D. Richardson, who bought the “bungalow” – that was the newspaper’s terminology – for $3,900.00. The house would change hands two more times before it was purchased by John Jewell in 1945. In 1964, the parcel was annexed into the city limits, and today, it goes for a zone change that would see the construction of a business or office on the front of the parcel and R-3 residential on the rear.
I fear the worst.
I don’t know what that means for the beautiful Spanish type suburban fireproof home of Sudie and Roger Parsons. Practically speaking, it’s amazing the four-acre lot has lasted intact for so long, but I grieve already for the loss of this special small house.
*Hollow Tile for the Home, Hollow Building Tile Association, 1925.
**This house does not appear to be extant.
***February 16, 1932 edition of The Mt. Sterling Advocate, page 1.
****May 5, 1932 edition of The Mt. Sterling Advocate, page 6.
Fascinating!
KSR