Historic Federal Style Structures

458 C Street, Washington DC

Date added:November 02, 2010

Isolated amidst a parking lot this L-shaped brick building stands with its neighbor as the only remaining small scale buildings that once characterized this area. The building, consisting of a main block and an ell, occupies a small rectangular site near the northeast corner of the block, across the street from the new Federal Courthouse. The site measures 25' wide by 65' deep and slopes gently to the south. The main block of the building is rectangular in plan, three stories high (plus basement and attic) and is capped by a gabled roof. The narrow shed-roofed rear wing is also rectangular in plan but only two stories. This wing and the adjacent building to the east encloses a small three-sided court at the rear.

The main or C Street facade is divided into three equal bays. It contains an elaborate eccentric arched entrance on the west. The entrance features ornate cast iron stair. The disposition and slender proportions of the openings in the facade suggest a late manifestation of the Federal style. A proper judgement, however, is made difficult by the extensive later alterations to the doorway, cornice and perhaps the entire facing of the wall.

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Charles Perry House, Southport Connecticut

Date added:November 17, 2010

Charles C. Perry (1795-1870) was a wealthy nineteenth-century shipowner and sea captain and a prominent figure within Southport's community. He and his wife Sarah had two children - Miah, who died at the age of seventeen, and Maria, who inherited her parent's residence upon her mother's death in 1882.

Charles Perry acquired the land upon which the house stands in September 1821. He was then twenty-six years old and unmarried. It is improbable that he would have built a residence of these proportions at the age of twenty-six or prior to his marriage circa 1830-33. The house was designed with the roof ridge parallel to the street rather than the gable facing front. This feature is characteristic of Federal style building in Southport and the Fairfield vicinity prior to 1830; the front facing gable is a feature which is characteristic of the area's Greek Revival style architecture after 1830.

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Conrad Edick House, Deposit New York

Date added:February 18, 2010

The structure is located facing the West Branch of the Delaware River very close to the line between Broome County and Delaware County. This line was originally the Fort Stanwix Treaty Line of 1768 and thus marked the western frontier of white settlement in New York State according to the agreement between the Indians of the Six Nations and Sir William Johnson, the British Crown's commissioner. The older portion of the village of Deposit, and its first center, was situated nearby, on the Delaware County side, east of the old Treaty line. Much of the village soon developed on the western or Broome County side. The site of this property is almost on the spot where the Treaty line meets the Delaware River, which it then follows southward. Its location was thus very easily identifiable In the early days.

An old description places the site of this house at the corner of "Water and West Main Streets". Since neither street name now exists, it is thought that "West Main" is "River" and "Water" is "Front" Street.

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