Gothic house, Wolcott

For those who found English traditions, politics, and literature more enthralling than the Greek, the gothic farmhouse was a happy – sometimes a positively jolly – alternative.  Tall forms and peaked roofs whose gable ends sprouted proud foliate finials emphasized gothic verticality.  Normal rectangular windows and doors could be provided with hood-like wooden trim derived from the drip molds of Tudor buildings.  At the cost of partially obscuring the surrounding narrow windows, the doorway itself could be gingered up with a wood tracery arch.  Perhaps in order to avoid interfering with the door swing, the narrow gothic lancet has been broadened into an approximation of an Indian Mogul form.

     Orderly and symmetrical, rather than irregular and picturesque like the more sophisticated gothic villas designed by architects, this house on West Port Bay Road in Wolcott nevertheless has its moments of glory.  Running up under gable eaves which project a foot beyond the face of the building are lacy barge boards.  These ingenious decorations were much appreciated and were the source of the tradition of fretwork and jigsaw work exploited in later bracketed buildings.  On the West Port Bay Road house, some of the silhouetted trefoils have then lobes extended into daggerlike points.  They are defined by the langorously curving lower edge of the molded wooden trim.  Soft extensions sink down along lines corresponding to the edges of the projecting front bay and then snake back up to the roof edge, drawing the eye upward once more.