Building Description
Detail of Doric cornice with indented mutule blocks.
The Paris and Anna Fletcher House in Bridport, Vermont, is a late Federal-period sidehall structure constructed c. 1826. Behind the main mass is an earlier kitchen ell, constructed c. 1813-15. The building faces west on Vermont Route 22A in Bridport, and lies within the easternmost section of the Bridport Village Historic District, which is listed on the Vermont State Register of Historic Places. The main mass is nearly a perfect cube, and is three bays wide and one bay deep. The treatment of the front facade suggests that perhaps the builder had never seen a classical portico and assumed from patternbook engravings that porticoes did not project, or perhaps they simply did not feel bound to rigid interpretation of patternbook design. Furthermore, the mutule blocks in the entablature composition are flat blocks with rows of holes drilled in them to simulate the more typical (and expensive) fully carved cones that hang from flat blocks. The building rests on a rubblestone foundation, which projects less than a foot above grade. The entire building is sided with wooden clapboards. The interior of the house is significantly less lavish than the front façade, which may suggest that the Fletchers were more concerned with outward appearances than interior enrichment.
The building sits about twenty feet back from VT Route 22a. Immediately to the south of the building stands a Federal-style brick store building, which is historically associated with the Fletcher House. The boundary between them is marked by a row of deciduous trees. About one hundred feet to the north of the Fletcher House sits a trailer with various additions. The ground to the east (behind the house) is low and swampy and has numerous large, deciduous trees. Directly in front of the Fletcher House is a gravel parking lot, which is about as wide as the main facade.
The primary character-defining feature of the Fletcher House is the two-story Doric portico on the front of the building, which is treated in a rather unusual manner. Though the portico is free-standing, it only projects about one inch from the facade instead of the more common projection of about six feet. A pedimented gable of modest pitch rests atop four fully rounded, attenuated columns on plinths. The windows do not line up exactly between the columns of the portico, though they are symmetrically arranged on the front facade of the building. While the center bay is centered between the columns, the end window bays are aligned toward the inner two columns. The windows are flanked by late nineteenth or early twentieth-century wooden louvered shutters. The tympanum of the pediment is finished with flush boards. The pediment gable woodwork quotes the Doric order, and is quite similar in detail to plates 4 and 8A in Asher Benjamin's Country Builder's Assistant. However, instead of having carved, three-dimensional cones that hang from a flat block, these mutules have rows of indented holes drilled into the flat block, which evokes a similar effect when viewed from the ground. This entablature extends across the eave lines of the north and south facades as well.
The front door of the main mass is positioned in the right-hand bay. The door itself is a simple six-panel Christian door, which sits in a shallow flat-paneled recession. The front door is flanked by two-thirds length engaged sidelights, which are glazed with single panes of glass. One original sidelight sash, consisting of five vertical panes of 8 X 10-inch glass, survives in the cellar. Below the sidelights are recessed, flat panels. The door and sidelights are framed by extremely thin, attenuated engaged pilasters. A semi-elliptical louvered fanlight tops the entire front door composition.
The south facade of the main mass has only one bay of windows. It is located off-center toward the west, or front corner of the facade.
The north facade of the main mass is organized into two bays, which are symmetrically arranged. A cylindrical metal furnace vent rises between the two window bays and extends about two feet from the eave line. The western second-story window (to the right, as one faces the north facade) is concealed by a pair of early Federal-period louvered shutters, which may be original to the building. To the right of the western first-floor window, very near the corner of the building, is the electric meter.
The east gable of the main mass does not have any windows. However, a chimney leaves the roof at the peak. This chimney is not original, and may have vented an earlier furnace. Directly in front of the chimney as one faces the west gable is a television antenna.
The window openings in the main mass retain their original overall proportions and architraves, which consist of flat boards with cap moldings. The original sash, which were probably six-over-six sash with eight- by ten-inch panes, have been replaced with mid- to late-nineteenth-century two-over-two sash.
A kitchen ell, the earlier portion of the building, constructed between 1813-1815, extends from the rear wall of the main mass. It is also two stories high with a shallow gabled roof. The roof of the kitchen ell has a slightly steeper pitch than the roof of the main mass. The eave line of the kitchen ell is about a foot lower than that of the main mass of the building. The ground slopes slightly toward the west, and as a result, there is about a three-foot exposure of the stone foundation at the point of the rear (west) wall of the kitchen ell. This portion of the building is also sided with pine clapboards, which have about a five-inch reveal.
The south facade, which was originally the front of the building, is presently asymmetrical, and does not appear to retain its original fenestration. There are three second-story windows and three first-story windows. The two pairs of upper and lower windows on the south facade furthest to the east (left, as one faces the south facade) line up into bays. However, the third first-story window (to the right) and the door immediately to the right of it do not line up with the second-story window above, which is placed slightly more to the left. Here the original window sash, which were probably nine-over-six sash, have been replaced with nineteenth-century two-over-two sash. The plain boxed cornice projects about five inches.
The west (rear) facade of the kitchen ell has two symmetrical bays. There are flush bargeboards in the gable instead of built-up eaves. The corner boards are very thin (only about four inches wide) in keeping with the Federal style. The door, which is in the southern-most bay, is late nineteenth-century and is glazed with eight lights; two lights wide and four tall, which fills the top two-thirds of the door. Below the glazed portion is a single flat panel. Directly to the left of this door is another first-story window, which does not conform to the two-bay configuration of the facade. Directly under this window a bulkhead leads to the cellar. Between this window and the first-floor window in the southern bay is a wooden utility box from the mid-twentieth century, which is sided with clapboards and covered with a shed roof. It is approximately four feet wide, two and one-half feet tall, and protrudes about one foot. It is attached to the west facade about three feet up from the foundation, so that the bottom lines up with the sills of the first-floor windows. The attic window in the gable appears to retain its original six-over-six sash, but the first and second-story windows directly below are nineteenth-century two-over-two replacements. The chimney to the kitchen fireplace, which leaves the roof at the peak of the east gable of the kitchen ell, partially blocks the attic window. The chimney leaves the roof slightly south of the peak, and the north wall of the chimney lines up with the ridge of the roof. Because of the drop in grade, the rubble stone foundation is exposed over two feet on the west facade.
The north facade of the kitchen ell has three bays of windows. The rather plain boxed cornice projects about five inches. The middle window bay is slightly off-center to the east (right, as one faces the north facade). Immediately to the left of the center first-floor window is a small early-twentieth-century kitchen window, which is approximately fourteen inches wide and sixteen inches tall, and is glazed with a single pane of glass. It is placed so that its head jamb lines up with the head jamb of the larger window about eight inches to the right of it. A cylindrical metal furnace vent, which comes out of the foundation, rises between the two windows. The furnace vent rises the full two stories and extends about two feet above the cornice. A second metal pipe comes out of the wall at the second-floor level to the left of the westernmost window and also extends about two feet above the cornice.
Attached to the rear or east side of the kitchen ell is a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century single-story woodshed. It is sided in wooden clapboards, which extend all the way to grade. The shed is topped by an uneven gable roof, with a long, broad southern slope and a very steep, short northern slope.
The southern facade is divided into two sections. The western section (to the left as one faces the southern facade) is recessed so the plane of the wall matches that of the kitchen ell. A partially enclosed porch of two bays with simple, squared posts, rail and balusters extends outward about six feet. This porch extends to shelter the western door and window of the kitchen ell. The wall plane of the eastern section of the woodshed extends outward about six feet to the plane of the porch rail. Two tall, narrow windows glazed with single panes of glass flank a centrally placed wooden board and batten door.
The eastern, or rear wall of the woodshed has two doors. One is nearly centrally placed, and is a late nineteenth-century door glazed with a two-thirds length single pane of glass. The second door, to the right, is a smaller and much earlier beaded board-and-batten door with a single cut-through glazed windowpane. This door was possibly salvaged from another building or brought from an older section of the house.
The northern facade of the woodshed has no doors or windows.