Title: RACE STREET #1565
Location Current Site: Denver CO UNITED STATES
Creator Personal Name: Snell,Frank S.
Creator Assoc Person Name: Dulan,Peter
Creator Assoc Person Role: Photographer
Date.Creation: ca. 1892-1892
Subject.Image Description: Roof Detail
Creator.Personal Name Label: Snell,Frank S.
Description.Image Comments: Octagon tower. Elaborate chimney brickwork. Eyebrow dormer in roof. Slide donated from Peter Dulan collection.
Source.Acquisition Date: 1998-07-18 00:00:00
Style/Period: Queen Anne
Style/Period Description: QUEEN ANNE
(1874?1893)
The term "Queen Anne" was coined in 19th century England to describe structures inspired by early 17th century buildings in which classical ornament was grafted onto Medieval forms. This eclectic style, however, was not a revival of actual designs from the reign of Queen Anne. English architect Richard Norman Shaw developed this original style by emulating aspects of English vernacular houses of brick and wood construction. The style's popularity in the United States spread after the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, which featured two British half-timbered pavilions. It was further propagated via pattern books and the first American architectural magazine, The American Architect and Building News. The Watts-Sherman House (1874) in Newport, Rhode Island, by Henry Hobson Richardson, was the first example of Queen Anne architecture in the United States.
Queen Anne architecture represented a rejection of the High Victorian Gothic Revival emphasis on "reality" and a renewed interest in the picturesque. It flourished after the 1873 financial panic. Americans saw the Queen Anne style as suggestive of a romantic past, but appreciated its flexibility and emphasis on originality. Queen Anne style houses by American builders and popular architects relied less on Medieval precedents than did the work of Shaw and Richardson, and they were more often made of wood. Typical elements and qualities included: asymmetry; round or octagonal corner towers; deep porches which cut into or extend the main volumes; prominent brick chimneys; contrasting materials, textures, and colors; and robustly scaled columns and pediments which depart substantially from "correct" usage as defined in Renaissance handbooks.
After the depression of 1893, however, the exuberance of Queen Anne architecture was considered by many Americian tastemakers to represent frivolous expenditures. The style was also rejected by the increasing numbers of professional architects whose academic training taught them to value more authentic revivals and less picturesqueness.
Subject Image View Type: Exterior, detail
Description.Subject Report: Eclectic style. Eyebrow window in roof.
Creator.Biography: SNELL, FRANK S. Denver architect Frank S. Snell (1867-1951) was known for designing and building new speculative houses for sale, including the Denver and National Register Landmark, the Delos Allen Chappell House (1895, 1555 Race St.) and a development of 30 houses in an area now designated as Denver's Snell Historic District. His only known large buildings were the Perrenoud Apartments (1902, East 17th and Emerson) and the La Marita Flats (1909 331 14th) now the Independence Building. Snell was born in January, 1867 in Denver. His father had come to Denver by wagon train and later invented a covered moving van called the Great Eastern. Snell was listed as an architect in 1898. The Denver Times ran an advertisement in 1902 announcing that Snell "Will build Fifty-One Houses in One Section of the City." He purchased materials wholesale and then built elegant, modern homes in Capital Hill by subdividing whole blocks into building sites. His scheme saved $1,000 on each house, and the entire investment for 16 houses was $50,000. The Snell Addition (1905-1911), bounded by East Colfax, East 14th, Cook and Madison, was developed by a syndicate of 30 men, each of whom invested $20,000. All the houses were two stories, had eight rooms and modern conveniences, but each had a different design and brick color. He lived in the district at 3421 Colfax Place. Snell left Denver in 1912 for California, where he died in 1951. He is buried in Los Angeles. Source: "Snell, Frank S," In Denver the City Beautiful, edited by Thomas J. Noel and Barbara S. Norgren, Denver: Historic Denver, Inc., 1987. (Gail Hook, 1998)
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ID Number.Former Image Accession VISC: 36470
Rights Description: Copyright owned by The Regents of the University of Colorado, a body corporate, and the photographer. All rights reserved.
Creator.Comments: U.S. Architect
Collection Name: Architecture and Planning Collection
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