10 Tavano Road (Robinwood Historic District)
Introduction
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The Robinwood Historic District consists of 21 mid-century Modern houses erected as the centerpiece of a unified housing development in the mid-1960s in the Town of Ossining, Westchester County, New York. Included in the district is the home at 10 Tavano Road. The houses which form this cohesive mid-twentieth century housing enclave were designed by architect Harry Wenning, a New Jersey native who was educated at the College of William & Mary and subsequently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a degree in architecture in 1952.
The Robinwood Historic District, including 10 Tavano Road, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
Images
![Plant, Sky, Cloud, Building](https://storage.googleapis.com/clio-images/medium_2509_IMG_1938.jpg)
Backstory and Context
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Two of Harry Wenning's Robinwood designs, 9 and 10 Tavano Road, were featured in the New York Times in an article entitled "Development in Ossining Offers Homes and Exteriors of Redwood and Glass." Ten Tavano Road was another variation of the same architectural devices and features of the other homes in the district. It was a four-bedroom model priced at $52, 500. On the lower level the living room and the dining room were not connected, while the kitchen was incorporated into a family room on the opposite side of the plan from the living room. A fireplace was a central feature of the living room.
The front elevation has a projecting gabled pavilion with brick siding on the first floor and vertical redwood siding on the second floor. A dramatic series of windows fill the space in the gable. The entrance to the house is stepped back on the left of the pavilion. The front door is surrounded by windows that go from grade to the roof line. Further to the left is the garage. Both clad in vertical redwood. The eave line starts at the apex of the pavilion gable and angles down continuously to the garage block. Like many of the other homes, the house has a sun deck on the rear elevation with a patio below.
Sources
- “Robinwood Historic District #100003632.” National Register of Historic Places. United States Department of the Interior/National Park Service.
- New York Time, "Development in Ossining Offers Homes with Extensive Redwood and Glass," 31 July 1966.
- Roger Panetta, Westchester the American Suburb, New York, Fordham University Press, 2006.