Walke House, 381 Western Avenue, Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio, USA. One of several early suburban large houses just outside of the town. This is the subject of a National Register nomination I am working on, and so I will have much more on this when done...

This is the only Early Classical Revival styled house in or near Chillicothe (at least, that is known or surviving). It stands on the west side of the old town, facing east to the sunrise as the nearby arterial road passes it to the south.

Unnamed house, formerly at about 1845 Mount Olive Road, vicinity of the vilage of South Salem, Buckskin Township, Ross County, Ohio, USA. The house was abandoned and collapsing when I discovered it in 1988, and is now apparently long gone. By the time I found it it had alrady lost its east wing, though it was clearly evidenced.

It resembles Missouri's Lilac Hill in form, with its two-story center narrrow rectangle block and flanking one-stopry, one-room front wings. Large external firboxes, flat-arch window headers, and dogtooth cornice are vernacular elements of the Federal style. The T-shaped form and wide main doorway with transom confused me, since I was conditioned to expect them on houses 20 years later and in New Englend (double-upright-and-wing Greek Revivals) and 60 years later in Victorian styling, and not on something that had unmistakable evidence of being circa 1820!

I recently realized that this perplexing house was this style, and all its idiosyncracies fit into place. With the Walke House, this is the only other Early Classical Revival styled house in or near Chillicothe I know, though it is no longer surviving. However, it is of a polar opposite version of the style, and there is probably no link between the two; this house is furthermore in what I consider the Hillsboro/Highland County 'micro-region' west of Chillicothe, and context for it should be sought out there, instead of in the Chillicothe 'micro-region.'

It stood on the south side of the the vilage of South Salem, facing north towards the town as the nearby road passes it to the east. This is an amazing discovery - unfortunately made almost 7 years later to the day, and more unfortunately, made long after the house had been demolished by neglect.

Grouseland, 3 West Scott Street, Vincennes, Indiana, USA. The home of Indiana Governor and later (and briefly) US President William Henry Harrison.

As the home's official website states, this "White House of the West" was built in 1803-04. It was the first brick home in the Indiana Territory. In the frontier village of Vincennes it seemed a palatial mansion. It was built on a knoll overlooking the Wabash River near a walnut grove.

Although the website describes it as being Georgian styled, I think "Early Classical Revival" is a better attribution with the two-story portico and bowed side wall and its location in the Midwest. The other side of the house features a center door and a dormer on the roof.

A painting gives a frontal view, showing the dominant portico and left-side bowed wall. Prints are available at the Grouseland gift shop.

More information is in the William Henry Harrison Mansion website, and the Vincennes Knox County Convention & Visitors Bureau.

BelleGrove, Middletown, Virginia, USA. This National Trust Property's website explains that "Major Isaac Hite Jr...served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. In 1783, his father gave him and his bride Nelly Conway Madison, sister of a future President of the United States, the 483 acres on which Belle Grove house was later built. In 1794, construction began, and was completed in 1797. The mansion was built with limestone quarried on the property... In 1815, as the family grew, an addition was made at the west end of the original house to finish-out the one-hundred-foot facade as it stands today."

Without seeing the floorplan, I can tell by the chimneys that the entrace hall spans the cener five bays and half of the facade, while the rear rooms are more traditionally set out flanking a hall of some sort...

Taft House, Cincinnati, Clermont County, Ohio, USA. The only house surviving on its original site in the original town, it has been expanded and is now an art museum.

The wings are later additions. Also, I have been told by a knowledgeable Cincinnatian that the portico was an early addition, and that the front doorway is a 1930s renovation without any photographic or structural evidence, and so may not be an ideal example of this style...

More information is in the Taft Museum website.

The Blennerhasset House, reconstructed on Blennerhasset Island, in the Ohio River. More is at the Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park website. A virtual tour with panoramic photos of the house and rooms is a part of the site.

This house may actually not be Early Classical Revival styled as I had originally thought, though. It's probably more Georgian than anything, with its Palladian windows and Palladian hyphenation, and pediments echoing porticoes without being porticoes...

Holt House, Washington D.C. Zoo(?), Washington, District of Columbia, USA. This endangered house has a less-common five-part Early Classical Revival style composition.

More information is in the Innercity(?) website.

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