323 N. Columbia house

As we walk back to Columbia street and turn north we quickly leave the old commercial district behind. We are entering the residential district where many of the wealthiest folks built their homes in the late 19th and early 20th century. Our next stop is the home at 323 North Columbia street which is a beautifully restored example of Victorian Queen Ann style.

Some of you might wonder what's the difference between plain old Victorian and Queen Ann Victorian. Well, all Victorian houses have a steep gabled, or what is commonly called "A-frame", roof with at least one window centered under the gable. Victorians also have a porch in front with a balustrade railing and usually the entry door will be to one side. So, as we can see, this house has all of those basic components.

When wealthy folks began to add fancy and expensive architectural features to their homes, the name Queen Ann came to be used to indicate that a Victorian home has several of these elaborate and expensive features.

With this house, you can see several examples of architectural additions that make a Victorian a Queen Ann. First is that large, wrap-around porch with a corner tower. Wrap around porches and corner towers are classic signatures of Queen Ann style. This porch is unusually elaborate because they've added fancy Italianate details like those fluted columns on raised foundations of rough-faced stone, that large dentilled cornice and a decorative pediment over the covered entryway.

On the second story those tall windows under the gable are typical of Victorian homes. But with this house we have more Italianate detailing, like the U-shaped crown moldings over the windows and the widely projecting cornice supported by scrolled brackets. That decorative detailing is also indicative of Queen Ann style.

Now, lets walk around to look at the south-facing side.

Here we have a central, two-story wing with a gable roof. On the wing's first floor is a three-sided bay with beautiful, tall windows that have prismatic transom lights. At the roofline, we can see the widely overhanging decorative cornice has wrapped from the front and above this wing.

Beside the wing is a one-story octagonal tower with a steep bell tower roof. Each face of the tower has a tall window with dressed stone sills and lintels.

The wing, the tower and the bay window with their Italianate details are significant features making this a Queen Ann style Victorian.

Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources SHAARD database (State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database)

https://secure.in.gov/apps/dnr/shaard/print.html?printType=countySurvey