Agenda Packet 11.7.24 - Laserfiche WebLink

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY DINSMORE HOUSE 222 South Cypress Avenue Santa Ana, CA 92701 NAME Dinsmore House REF. NO. ADDRESS 222 South Cypress Avenue CITY Santa Ana ZIP 92701 ORANGE COUNTY YEAR BUILT Circa 1899 LOCAL REGISTER CATEGORY: Key HISTORIC DISTRICT N/A NEIGHBORHOOD Eastside NATIONAL REGISTER CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION C NATIONAL REGISTER STATUS CODE 5S1 Location: Not for Publication Unrestricted Prehistoric Historic Both ARCHITECTURAL STYLE: Queen Anne (Late Victorian), Greek Revival The Queen Anne (Late Victorian) (also known as the Queen Anne Revival) dominated residential architectural design during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century in the West, and was nearly as influential on early commercial buildings. Identifying features include the front-facing gable roof; ornate decoration of wood or metal along the eave and in the gable end; avoidance of flat wall surfaces through the use of applied ornamentation of wood or metal; and classical columns or pilasters. Multi-storied residential and commercial examples often incorporated bay windows, sometimes topped with towers. The style borrowed heavily from late Medieval models, with the addition of other regional interpretations. Some of the most well-developed examples can be found in California and in the southern states (McAlester, 263-268). Although classical architecture as a whole provided precedents for most American designers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a specifically Greek Revival was initiated in 1818 with a competition to design the Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia (Whiffen, 40). Over the next approximately fifty years, the style was utilized for a variety of building types, including residences. It can be recognized by a symmetrical arrangement of building elements; the presence of Greek orders; rectangular building plans; gabled or hipped roofs of low pitch; and, often, an unmistakable reference to Greek temple design through incorporation of colonnades and front-gabled facades. In the Greek Revival, architectural elaboration is focused on cornice lines, doorways, columns and piers, and windows (McAlester, 178-184). The Greek Revival is most commonly found in the eastern half of the continental United States; examples in the West are more rare and usually date to the second half of the nineteenth century. SUMMARY/CONCLUSION: The Dinsmore House appears to qualify for listing in the Santa Ana Register of Historical Property under Criterion 1 as an intact and representative example of a farmhouse influenced by the Queen Anne (Late Victorian) and Greek Revival styles of the late nineteenth century. Additionally, the house has been categorized as “Key” for its “distinctive architectural style and quality” as a representative example of a farmhouse with Queen Anne (Late Victorian) and Greek Revival characteristics (Municipal Code, Section 30-2.2).