Susan's Victorians

The Queen Anne Tower House

The Queen Anne Tower house was the most elaborate of all Victorians, looking like small castles. Features can include towers, turrets, tall chimneys, wrap-around porches, and bay windows. Often, colored glass was used in some of the windows. Also, elevations were often irregular and asymmetrical. These were built during the 1880s through early 1900s, although the later ones didn't tend to be as fancy as the earlier ones, as people were getting tired of heavy decoration and were starting to favor a plainer look for their houses.

		White Plains, New York My sister moved to New York for awhile back in the early 90s when her then-boyfriend's band was being produced by Tony Visconti, who happened to live there. So I went out and visited her for a week. The houses in her neighborhood were all big and old, I really liked them, but they didn't quite have the fancy Victorian style to them that I like to photograph. Here's one that did, though.
		Cincinnati, Ohio This sturdy-looking brick house was on the same street as the house I showed you on the rowhouse page.
		Plattsmouth, Nebraska What intricate railings and spindles on this one!
		Omaha, Nebraska This house I found on 10th St. looks like it used to be quite impressive! Before they completely butchered it with all those weird windows stuck in all over the place!
		New Orleans, Louisiana This unusual looking one is the closest thing I saw to a Queen Anne tower house in New Orleans! New Orleans has some strange yet fascinating architecture.
		Astoria, Oregon This 1890 home in the Uppertown area was built by fish cannery owner Gustav Holmes. I got to tour it when they had an open house once - very nicely restored inside! Later, Gustav Holmes's daughter Eleanor moved to this house in 1904 with her husband.
		Seaview / Long Beach, Washington The Long Beach Penninsula on the Washington coast doesn't have many Victorian houses to speak of. But here's a rare one we stumbled upon once while searching for a yard sale!
		....and another one.
		Seattle, Washington When I first heard of Seattle's Queen Anne Hill, I thought it would be a haven for Victorians in the city. However, this is one of the only ones I found. I later found out that the hill was named that when there were a lot of Queen Annes there, but it's no longer like that. Usually in big cities you'll find a lot of old houses hidden here and there, but Seattle for some reason got rid of nearly all of theirs. Update: see the renovation of this house here!
		Coupeville, Washington Another Inn in Coupeville - are all their houses inns?? Anyway...this is the Will Jenne House, built in 1890. Interesting square tower.
		Port Townsend, Washington This is the Frank Hastings house. Hastings, president of the street car company in town, started to have this house built in 1890. But due to an economic downturn that year, he never was able to finish it. A C.A. Olson bought it at an auction in 1904 and finally completed it. 2005 update: I see it's an inn now, check them out here!
		I like the windows on this triple-deck tower! This 1889 is the Albert C. Adams house, but he was only the owner, not the resident. The first residents were George B. Hinds and Edward S. Campbell, owners of a real estate and insurance firm.
		The Starrett House, now an inn, was built by George Starrett, a carpenter from Maine, as a gift for his wife in 1889. The octagonal tower is quite impressive. We went in under the guise of looking for a place to stay for the night and got to look around a bit. Staring up the inside of the tower, in which there is a spiraling staircase, is awesome. They call themselves a "Carpenter Gothic" style house, but I am not familiar with this term.
		Yreka, California This is more of a cottage, but I put it here, because it does have a "tower". Although its tower is really just a cover for an open porch, and who knows if it's even original to the house!
*NEW!!*		Interesting corner tower one that fits nicely on a corner lot.
*NEW!!*		This one just must've had a tower or two at some point in its life! I can't think of it as anything BUT a tower house!
*NEW!!*		That's it. I'm picking up and moving to Yreka and claiming this one as my own. Just experiencing it in person, on its quiet street with its big yard just made me sigh with longing.
*NEW!!*		Red Bluff, California I've already mentioned this town on previous pages. One thing I'm curious about - why are there NO stop signs or traffic lights anywhere in the historic district? It is so hard to navigate the streets here! Then people get miffed at you when you stop at an intersection and look around to see if it's safe to go - like there's a secret knowledge here of who should go and who should stop. Ok, enough of that, here's a nice solid example of a tower house for you now....
*NEW!!*		Eureka, California Can you believe this one??? The windows in the bays are just so perfect, the elaborate trim is in such fine condition. I wish I could find some historical facts about these latest houses I've put on - but I looked through my collection of Victorian house photo books and none of these fine examples are listed. Every book lists the famous Carson mansion in Eureka, though!
*NEW!!*		Another nice solid example of a tower house.
*NEW!!* *NEW!!* *NEW!!*		Petaluma, California Three nice large ones from this town. All I have to say about the middle one is humphs to those trees!
		San Francisco, California This is the Haas-Lilienthal House museum. It was built in 1886 by William Haas, co-owner of a grocery firm. Before the 1906 earthquake, there were a lot of these extra-huge mansions in the area, but to stop the fire from spreading west, the ones along the main street of Van Ness were bombed. This one, just west of that street, was spared.
A bunch of large Queen Annes on corners! Look at the house next door to the one in the second picture - it's naked! hee hee....looks like it's being totally redone in plywood or something. In the third picture the tower's cap is missing! Makes it look totally unfinished. The middle one is the only one I know the date of, built in 1881 by contractors The Moore Brothers for a Mrs. Atherton.
		These three similar houses are all in the Western Addition, named that because the area was added to the city in 1851. But it was still undeveloped until the 1870s when a building boom there began. In the latter part of the 20th century, the area declined into a ghetto, and many Victorians were torn down to build public housing. When I lived in the city, the area was still pretty scary to even ride a bus through, but pockets of nicely restored Victorians still exist, like the ones on Broderick Street. The one in the first picture is from 1895, the one in the third, from 1892. The paint job on the third picture is more impressive in person than what I've managed to capture in the photo.
A few of the more ordinary tower houses, all from the Haight, except the second from 1891, which is in Pacific Heights.
		This one from 1899 can be found on the corner of the row of famous houses on Alamo Square - the ones you see on all the postcards. This is my favorite of the bunch, because it's different than the rest. One of the others was up for sale recently and had its own website. Asking price was something over a million, maybe even two million, I forget. On the site you could take a tour of it and it really wasn't even that nice inside. I couldn't imagine paying that much for a house that was right up against its neighbors, has little if any yard, and isn't even that large!
A few more tower houses from SF. The first one pictured also can be found in the Alamo Square area. The second one, from 1895, is hard to see behind the foliage but I like it cuz it just looks so mysterious. The second one, in Pacific Heights, is from 1890. The last one has the extra bonus of being a double tower house!
		San Pedro, California There are just a few tower houses in San Pedro, and they're not quite as flamboyant as those found elsewhere...
		This is called The Danish Castle, and was constructed for a Danish sea captain in the 1880s.
		One of the tinyest tower houses I've ever seen!
		Now can anyone tell...if this is an authentic Victorian from the days of old, or a modern one, built to look old? It looks a bit too fresh to be a real one. Update: the person who owns the house below writes in to say that this one is indeed just a reproduction!
		I would love to find out the history of this one. It's located in a newer area, so I wonder if it was moved there recently? Whenever I'd go by it, I'd always wonder if it feels lonely, the sole one of its kind surrounded by nondescript ranch houses. Update: The person who owns this house wrote a bit about the history of it. See the messageboard.
		Hemet, California Hemet is an ugly, atrocious town out in rural Riverside county. Filled with strip malls, stucco housing, apartments and trailer parks. The only reason I know it at all is because it's at the foot of the San Jacinto Mountains, up in which my husband's parents lived until a few years ago. It was beautiful up there, but to do anything you had to come down to Hemet. I think this was the only Victorian in town, even though the town was founded in 1887!
		Oxnard, California Oxnard isn't much better than Hemet. Out in the middle of agricultural Ventura county, it's pretty much a dusty dump. BUT worth trekking out to for its Heritage Square a collection of wonderful houses of wealthy early settlers of the area, moved from ranches and downtown to be restored. The houses are now used as offices, a restaurant (which we ate at), and other things. But every so often they have tours where you can go in all of them and learn the histories. We went during one of their Christmas tours and loved it. Although Christmastime in Oxnard - even with people dressed up in Dickensonian costume and hot apple cider - hardly seems real when it's blazing hot and arid outside. Anyhow, the house on the left is the 1896 Justin Petit Ranch House. It was restored by a Petit family descendent along with its owner Gary E. Blum and houses a few business offices.
		Los Angeles, California Just off the historic, narrow Pasadena 110 freeway, in-between Pasadena and Los Angeles in Highland Park, lies a nice collection of Victorian houses, moved there from nearby areas and are now in various states of restoriation. It's known as Heritage Square, and you can tour them. This one is the most elaborate. It is called The Hale House, after James and Bessie Hale, who purchased it in 1901, because it was previously unknown who the original owner was. The original owner was George Washburn Morgan, a real estate developer, and it was built in 1888. It is furnished in period style. The square is open on weekends and I urge everyone who visits the area to go visit it! They also have a real Octogon house and a 2nd Empire house, along with others!
		In a real dumpy area near downtown L.A. you can find these two gems right next door to each other. Very surprising that these still stand, since L.A. has a history of not exactly appreciating their Victorians. (For example, the wonderful Bunker Hill area, once populated with elaborate old houses, now is home to a bunch of office buildings). The top house is the Wright-Mooers House, from 1894. Built by Frank L. Wright and owned by Frederick Mitchell Mooers, one of the discoverers of the Yellow Aster mine in California. Isn't it exotic? I love the curved frame of the top balcony. I have no info on the second house.
		More from the Echo Park area's Angelino Heights neighborhood. The top one is nicely accented by that red tree, isn't it? It was built in 1887 and can be found at 724 East Edgeware Road The second one was built around 1888 and can be found at 1320 Carroll Avenue. AND can be seen in the 1981 Afterschool Special called "A Matter of Time"! The family in the show lives in it! At the time is was painted sort of a tan with brown trim. A lot of the inside of the house is shown, well worth renting the DVD for it! Even has a quick street shot where you can see a few of the other houses on the block. The third one I just found a more recent photo of with a new color scheme at: http://www.laokay.com/lathumb/laphoto/Victorian019.jpg. It's at 1344 Carroll Avenue.
		San Diego, California The top house is another from the only row of Victorians in the middle of National City, just south of San Diego. The second house I really can't remember taking a picture of!
		Coronado Island, California More from around Coronado Island. I have my suspicions about the bottom two being reproduction Victorians. What do you think?
		Catalina Island, California About 22 miles off the coast of the L.A. harbor is Catalina Island, mecca for tourists. Its main town is Avalon, which got its start back in the late 1800s. Not much remains from that period. Also received the following info about this house on my messageboard: "It was originally called "LOOK OUT COTTAGE" when built by Peter Gano for his fiance, who never moved in. The Giddings Family bought the house in 1929 and renamed "HOLLY HILL HOUSE" Curerent owner, Victor Kreis has restored the house to its turn of the century splendor."
		Utica, New York This is the Munson Williams Proctor Institute- School of Art- office of Administration and Admissions. Address: 310 Genesee St.
		This is named The Community Foundation - I guess they give out grants to different local organizations. It's at 270 Genesee St.
		Also on Genesee street. Does this sort of look like it has a "Shingle Style" influence? Take the shortcut to the next Utica homes HERE