 Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to welcome our guest speaker today Devon Coleman. Devon is a holds a master's degree in historic preservation from the University of Vermont. He has served since 2006 as the Vermont Historical Architectural Historian at the Vermont Division for Historical Preservation. And in that role he's responsible for identifying and documenting historical resources throughout Vermont. He also oversees the programs for the state and national registers for historic places. And today he's here to talk to us about the history of the city in which we're currently sitting, South Burlington. So please welcome Devon Coleman. Great. Thank you for that introduction and sound good. All right, can we flip on the projector here and then hit the lights? So thank you for having me here today. My name is Devon Coleman. I work at the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation and I'm going to be talking about historic buildings of South Burlington and that raises a few eyebrows. Amazingly though, this is the third time I've given a version of this talk about historic buildings in South Burlington. And I love that there's an interest in it because most people don't think of South Burlington as historic. It's just, they think of the interstate, they think of the strip developments on Williston Road, Shelburne Road. They don't think historic buildings, but they're here and I'll prove it to you in this talk. So I've been looking forward to this and before I jump into things, I always like to share some of my go-to research resources in case people want to follow up on anything on your own. And to here, the Field Guide to American Houses is basically the go-to reference for American residential architectural history. If you see a building, you're not sure what style it is, what period it was built. It's in this book. So that's a good go-to. Specific to Northern New England is the Building History of Northern New England by Jim Garvin, who was in New Hampshire, my colleague in New Hampshire. And incredible book about construction details, agricultural practices, architectural styles all over Northern New England. If you're interested in farms, barns, and outbuildings, Tom Bissers' book, New England Barns and Farm Buildings, is a great resource that includes a lot of Vermont examples of barns. So, and it's a nice compact size, so you can just toss it in your car as you're driving around the state. And then finally, the most recent book, Buildings of Vermont by Glenn Andress and Curtis Johnson, is a 20-plus year project that finally was published a few years ago, looking at historic buildings in practically every town in the state. And it's really a great resource. And in talking about South Burlington, I'm an architectural historian. I'm a buildings guy. But I don't want to overlook the fact that there's incredible archaeological history in South Burlington also. And a lot of people don't associate archaeology with Vermont. You know, it's not just New Mexico and South America. In Egypt, they have archaeology. There's incredible archaeology in Vermont. For example, some excavations in 2011 near the airport showed a pre-contact Native American village site from 1300 AD. And they found it's all there, just right next to the road. They just had to look for it. So, you know, I'll be talking about, you know, much more modern, recent history, but South Burlington's history goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. Another thing that I like to point out is think about your personal perspective that you bring to your understanding of the community you live in, the buildings you look at, because we all, depending on what we know, where we're from, how long we've lived there, how old we are, we have very different interpretations of what might be historic or not historic. And I think a really good example that illustrates this is a building, this is not South Burlington. This is College Hall at Vermont College of Fine Arts and Montpelier. Built in 1868 to 1872, so Civil War is ended and this grand building goes up on the site of a former Civil War hospital in Montpelier. It was listed in the National Register in 1975, so about a hundred years passed and then it was listed in the National Register. And I think it's safe to say that most of us would look at this building and say, wow, what a beautiful building, definitely worthy of preservation. And consider this quote about that building from 1937. The red brick administration building faces the broad campus built in the ugly, angular style of 1872. Can you imagine? With a blunt tower, a man's hard roof and arched windows which contrive to give a Civil War period flavor to the scene. It was a Civil War period building, so there's nothing contrived. But this I think illustrates so beautifully how our relationship to buildings changes over time. And it's very common to see in 1872, great building. You go 40, 50 years later, awful building. 75, oh great building listed in the National Register and this is not exclusive to this style. The Victorian architecture went through this, Art Deco went through this, modernism is going through it right now. The buildings from the 50s and 60s, 10, 15 years ago, oh, get rid of it. And now it's like, oh, we should look at that, that might be significant. So, and no, I'm not sure quite how to phrase this. I'm going to show buildings that I know some of you in the audience remember when they were built. And that can be a little bit of a shock. But just keep that perspective in mind that it's really generational, you know, we tend to hate the buildings that our parents built, but love the buildings our grandparents built. It skips a generation. So, and finally, how many people here live in South Burlington? Okay, everyone else has to leave. This is only for South Burlington residents. So, let's look at an early map of, this is a detail of a map of Chittenden County. And you can see that this, turn on my pointer. So, this entire area is all Burlington. It's all the town of Burlington. And that really goes back to the New Hampshire land grants of 1763. Benning Wentworth, this whole area was deeded as Burlington. Then in 1865, the city of Burlington is formed. And that left the rest of Burlington wondering, what do we do? And so they became South Burlington, the town of South Burlington. So here, 1869, we've got this bold line separating. So everything up here is now the city of Burlington. And everything else is South Burlington. And the reason for that was really due to taxation. And that the city needed municipal services. They needed to maintain their streets, their water treatment system. They'd very densely populated. They needed municipal services. The farms out in the rural areas said, we're not going to pay for those city folks, sewers and fancy roads. So they split. South Burlington became a town. Burlington became a city. And subsequently, South Burlington became a city in 1971. So the way that I have organized the talk is basically by architectural style and with local examples. And I have to give a disclaimer that I will probably not include somebody's favorite building. And I apologize. This is not an exhaustive inventory of every historic building in South Burlington. They're definitely ones that I don't include. It could simply be I didn't have a good photograph of the building. So I've chosen representative examples. And if I don't picture something here, it doesn't mean it's not important. So to start off, there's a general category of houses that are known as folk houses or sometimes pre railroad houses. And these are the houses that were built by early settlers. And they really the first and foremost their purpose was to provide shelter. So there are essentially four walls and a roof, very little architectural detail. The significance is really in the plan. They're typically very symmetrical with a center door, window or two on each side, just the classic triangular roof box house plan. And this house is actually right across the street. And Lee Emmons, the owner, was kind enough to show me around last week. And what's really cool is that this is actually what's known as a plank house in that instead of having a timber frame with voids in the walls and structural members, the actual entire wall is made up of heavy timber boards that are mortise intended into the timber frame and pegged into the supporting members. And you can see that inside the house. The pegs are right there. And if you think about it, these early settlers had to build a house and they had a lot of wood. This was all forest. So they had to clear the forest. And what's a good way to use up a bunch of wood is with a plank house. And they're really solid also. They're, I mean, this one's been there for over 200 years. So really interesting. I wouldn't say it's an especially rare building form, but it's not the common building form. And you know when you have a plank house, when you go to try to run a wire or a pipe in the wall and you realize there's no wall cavity. Another example, these are a photo from 1975 and a present day photo of the John Fay house, circa 1807. And this is just off Hinesburg Road. It's surrounded by modern townhouses now. And it's pretty remarkable that you can have an 1807 house and a 2010 house within 50 feet of each other. Just right, the interstate runs right on the other side. But again, another very early house. John Fay was the first postmaster in the town of Burlington. And Hinesburg Road used to run actually right in front of the house. Most of these early houses are built right on the road because who wants to shovel a long driveway? So whenever I see a really old house like this, early 1800s that's set back from the road, you know that road has moved. Or in some cases, the house might have been moved also. But something has happened there because usually the connection between the house and the primary travel lane is very tight. The Abel Owen House, 1815. The previous houses were wood construction, wood frame. Here's a stone house built of stone quarried right on site, which is also not surprising because at this point, there are no railroads. There's no shipping of heavy materials like stone across the state. So if you find a stone house, you know that stone was quarried pretty darn, like either on site or right next door because you had to transport it. And so quarried and cut on site. And I love houses like this that have a date stone. It makes my job so much easier when it just says 1815 right on the house. Really beautifully maintained and restored house. And even to the central chimney, this would be, is another good way to date first period houses is that they would have a central chimney that would lead to a massive hearth in the center of the house. And that was usually you'd have a center corridor and then a room on either side and the hearth in the middle with fireplaces opening into each room. And that was the core heat source, that huge brick hearth would essentially be a heat sink. So even after the fire died down at night, those bricks would radiate warmth. And you see the use of brick limited really just to those center hearths because brick was a manufactured material that would have to be shipped in from elsewhere. So you used it very sparingly in these early houses. Later on, 1830s, we start to see houses completely made of brick. So that tells you that the brick industry is picked up. They're making a lot more. The roads are better because they're able to transport the brick and get it there safely without breaking all of them. But we still have very basic form. Center door, two windows on each side, basically a modified cape form house. We start to see these higher knee walls, which is the space between the top of the door and windows and the eve. That gets lengthened over the decades to provide a little more space in the second story to make it more functional. Now at the same time as those early settler houses are being built, there are also more larger and more grand houses that do have some architectural distinction to them. And these were typically built by wealthier merchants, traders, businessmen, who had the means to build a bigger house, maybe hire a builder to design it. And that builder was probably working from a pattern book or had maybe been down to Boston and seen what the latest passions were in architecture. And then five or 10 years later, it would trickle back up to Vermont. So there's a definite leg in architectural styles from Southern New England up to Northwest Vermont. But these two houses are good examples of just a basic Georgian federal style plan with two stories, eve front, meaning that flat front edge of the roof is facing the street, five windows across the top. And you can see over here a door in the middle, two on the side. And the parlance for that way to remember it is five over four with a door. You're set, Georgian federal, can't go wrong. So two good examples and interestingly in my research on both of these houses, the source noted that they both have rear wings, you can't see it on this one, that was apparently the original house from 1809, 1810 or so. And that's very common on Vermont farmsteads to have a very simple one story cottage as kind of the starter house. And then once the farmer gets his feet on the ground, starts making some money, then they build onto the front of that cottage, their grand house in that original house becomes more of a storage space or living space or a kitchen or something. So very, I haven't been to either of these houses to investigate, but it would be really interesting to see what is back there. Then getting more into what I would consider high style federal, this very prominent building on Hinesburg Road. And I meant to point out on the maps, the historic maps, even back then in the 1800s, there's a very strong series, essentially parallel lines, north-south roads, Route 7, Dorset Street, 2A, Hinesburg Road, that north-south route is where we find a lot of these buildings. The main east-west corridor was the Winnowski Turnpike, which is Williston Road today. That was the main link from Burlington to Montpelier. So a lot of north-south traffic and just one primary east-west road. So a lot of these buildings are on the more heavily traveled roads, because buildings like this were used as a tavern or a roadside stand outside of city limits. You think people traveling by horse, they need to stop and rest, water their horses, spend a night. This was a good place to do it. And really with the federal style, the hallmarks are this beautiful arched, recessed brick arched entryway and a fan light above the door. And then the prominent chimneys. And here, getting into 1815, 1820s, unlike the Abel Owen House, the Stone House, that had the big central chimney, now we start to see the fireplace is broken apart and split up into individual rooms so that there's a chimney. You get these multiple chimneys coming up, showing that there's a fireplace here, here, here, here, basically one on each wall of each room. So the spaces and the plans of the buildings are evolving beyond just that core two room layout with a central hearth. In the 1830s and 1870s, we see the Greek revival style coming into play. And this is really a response to the nation as a whole kind of getting its feet on the ground and thinking about how do we want to represent our country. And up until this point, the federal style, Georgian styles, those are all based on British precedents and ways of building. And people started thinking, we just bought a war to get independence from Great Britain. Why are we building buildings like Great Britain? Let's find our own style. So they looked back to the Greeks and also Greeks being the birthplace of democracy, seemed like a good source for America being a new democracy. Greek revivals probably the most prevalent architectural style in Vermont, but not in South Burlington. There's very little and it's really limited primarily to doorways. These two houses, one of the hallmarks of Greek revival is the temple front. If you pictured the big grand buildings in Washington DC, the Supreme Court with the columns and the pediment over the top, this is a very, very pared down version of basically in that it's gable front. So unlike the federal houses that had their eaves facing the road, the building has been rotated and it's picking up on that gable, that Greek temple front, both of these examples. And then the doorways, classic Greek revival doorways with a single, usually pretty massive door, very wide with side lights, transom window, and then a very heavy stone lintel across the top, just the way the Greeks would build their temples with stone columns and a stone lintel that's all distilled down into this doorway. And otherwise, a lot of communities, you'll find whole streets lined with Greek revival houses. The lack of that in South Burlington tells me that they're just, there wasn't a lot of development happening in South Burlington in the mid 19th century. It was a rural farming community. There wasn't, there weren't new villages sprouting up and there just wasn't a lot of construction happening. Another style that is very rare in South Burlington is the Gothic revival. And this style was really never widely popular. It was pretty short-lived, but very distinctive with its very deeply pitched roofs and little dormer windows, lots of decorative porch posts and little gingerbread above the windows and on the eaves, a very decorative style. And what's interesting is this house is down in Queen City Park, which was founded in 1882 as a private camp for spiritualist revivals. And the fact that Gothic revival was chosen, there were a few Gothic revival houses in that area. And the choice of that style is really interesting because it was always promoted as being very in tune with nature. The Gothic revival was seen as, you know, unlike the Greek revival, which is so rigid and symmetrical and perfect. Gothic revival could be a little more fun, have a little more decoration, and with all of its verticality, it was seen as really blending in with the surrounding landscape. Sort of the cottage in the woods was the ideal of the Gothic revival. And for that to show up at Queen City Park makes perfect sense. You don't see a lot of Gothic revival in downtown urban areas. It was really more of a rural, rustic type of building. Italianate, again, not a whole lot because not a lot was being built in South Burlington in the mid-19th century. But one good example, which sadly is no longer there, was the shed farmhouse on the UVM farm on Spear Street. And really a great example of the Italianate style with these bracketed eaves and really beautiful surrounds on the windows. And a lot of this ornamentation that we start to see in the 1850s is directly due to the railroad. So 1848-49, the railroad arrives in Burlington, and that meant that mass-produced woodwork like this, either the raw materials could be shipped to Burlington and then sawn and shaped and molded, or they were produced elsewhere and brought into town and resold. That's where all these decorative things like the brackets and the window hoods and the porch columns start to come from. Same for the Gothic revival. All that decorative gingerbread and elaborate shinglework was all machine-made using new band saws, and it was just, there were mills cranking it out, and they'd load it on the railroad, ship it all over the place. So we really start to see a shift from very kind of hyper-local construction, such as the Stonehouse built of stone from the site to a broadening of material sourcing so that a house like this can have things that aren't necessarily made by a local craftsman. The French Second Empire, really a very showy style, really a beautiful, this is similar to the College Hall that I started out with in Montpelier, and French Second Empire will always have a mansard roof. That is a roof that basically makes the upper story of the building occupiable space, and this is based on the designs of a French architect, François Mansart, who developed this way of accommodating a whole other story of the building under the main roof, and really in vogue for a pretty short period of time. It lived on as a popular style for academic institutions, but as residential, this was really for grand buildings. You rarely see a really modest little one-story French Second Empire. I know of a few, but they're not common. Usually they're tricked out to, you know, this one has this beautiful tower, these circular windows, beautiful porch. I included the two older photo and present-day photo to show the porch has been enclosed over here, but this is really a knockout example of French Second Empire. It's right on Shelburne Road. Another example, the Drew House. This is now the Lakeview Restaurant, I think, and what's interesting with this is that all of this, all the window lintels and detailing are cast iron. So again, we see industry. Now we have access not only to brick and mass produced wood parts. We can get cast iron either cast regionally or again shipped in on the railroad. And we start to see cast iron lintels and building elements in Winooski in Burlington in this general area around the 1870s, 1880s. And again, a sensitive enclosure of the porch here, but again, it makes a big difference. When you go from that open, you kind of lose that the sense of depth of the building that the porch provides when it's enclosed like this. Moving up to the turn of the century, the Queen Anne and really a style that took off in Burlington, the hill section, go down any street, you'll find a Queen Anne house, really designed by more wealthy homeowners who could hire an architect to build and design a house. Two examples in South Burlington, the Easter Lake Inn, which was built as a summer resort, so not a private residence, but definitely catering with its architecture to a certain clientele who knew and appreciated the current Queen Anne style. And another interesting hybrid example of basically, this is the Heath House on Williston Road. It's now right at the entry to Stonehouse Commons. And it's a colonial revival house, Gambrill Roof, but then there's this tower stuck on the corner, and it's a Queen Anne tower. I mean, and that's one of the really interesting things about architectural history is that very few of the buildings are, you know, match up perfectly with what's in the history books as the perfect example. Most buildings are kind of a conglomeration of multiple styles, and that's what makes it interesting. You know, why did they opt for a very basic house form and then put this tower right on the corner? You know, what was what was the thinking there? It's really bridging these two very different architectural periods. And also with these with the Queen Anne, the Gothic revival, the Italian eight, they're very decorative styles. See a lot of detail, lots of very, you know, we've got a second story porch, a porch co-share, a tower with a conical roof, a little dormer there, a chimney, bay window. I mean, you name it, it's on this building. And you know, this was really a reaction against the previous generation's affinity for Greek revival, which was so pure, so clean. You know, like it started out with every generation, they discard what their parents did and they want to do their own thing. So we see this flip flop, a very pure, crisp design to much more decorative and then pulling back. Again, here's now we're back into colonial revival. Much, you know, still some decoration, you know, there's some complex roof forms, porches, but this is not a Queen Anne house. This is very basic plan. This is the Wheeler house up at the park and gardens, just up the road here. And I included this old picture because it shows the original porch and this nice little balustrade that was up on the roof, those are gone now. But the town, sorry, the city, the city owns this building and I'm really interested to see what they do with it because it's a great historic building. Another good example of colonial revival and that return to a much more pared down, calm design aesthetic is the Wallace Foothouse on Spear Street. This is a tough house to see because there's a huge hedge right in front of it. So I had to go back to an old survey photo that we had. But you see the symmetry, varied, you know, crisp, clean lines. If there's a roof dormer, there's usually one on each roof playing just very, very rhythmic. I've really backed off of that. Anything goes Queen Anne style. And one of my favorite colonial revival houses on Shelburne Road. This is now the Davis Art Studios. And I was really worried about this house a couple years ago, when it was vacant. Because this is the home of Frank Lyman Austin, who was probably the most, well, not probably, he was the most prominent Burlington architect of the turn of the century, early 20th century. Doing buildings like the Champlain School, Memorial Auditorium, Central Fire Station, YMCA, just in Burlington. And then around the state, he worked on a lot of state institutional projects, the Brandon Training School, the Week School, Vermont Academy. He was really the go to guy for designing good, solid, architecturally correct buildings. He could deliver on a municipal budget and get the job done. And this was the house that he designed and built for himself and his family. And really a great example of colonial revival. And basically the gist of colonial revival, it's kind of a grab bag. You can throw anything in there and call it colonial revival. It's picking and choosing elements from earlier colonial America. And so, for example, it's a two story house, but instead of the usual five over four with a door, we've got six windows. You would never see six windows on a federal style house. But it's the same general form, orientation to the street. You wouldn't see dormers like this on a federal style house. But they're picking up elements and kind of reworking them, rearranging them into a revival. Allenwood. Has anyone been out to Allenwood? Stunning. The city had the chance to buy this property and you should be kicking yourselves for not. This was a lakeside resort built in the 1900s. We don't know the architect, but this is some of the best craftsman style arts and crafts architecture in the whole state. Bar none. I mean, this is, I'm still researching trying to figure out who the heck designed these buildings because they have no equal. This is the main, I think it was this main kind of sitting room for the resort. It's a circular building with walls of windows all the way around. This rustic stonework, shinglesighting. Another view here with this nice little pop out bay window in the lake beyond. The entire resort was outfitted with Gustav Stickley furniture and when they finally closed it down and cleared it out, one cabinet sold for $275,000. It was unbelievable. So this property is really one of a kind. And the fact that I forget the total acreage, but it's a lot. On Lake Champlain, right in South Burlington, undeveloped is incredible. It is off of Shelburne Road, right where, what is it opposite? Panera bread kind of near that IDX the other side of the road. You really can't see it from the road, especially now that they've torn down the stone gate that used to say Allenwood. There's a big development of new apartments going on there, but it's all back behind there all the way to the water. It's an incredible property. Feral, I forget which one. It's one of the ferales. So moving on into the 20th century, and this is where South Burlington really starts to come of age. And my area of interest in architectural history is mid 20th century. So this is great. And a quote from the Burlington Free Press in 1947, so right after World War II has ended, if the construction and expansion in South Burlington the past several years are any indication of future development, then the town can expect a period of great building activity in the future. And they were right. Unbelievable growth. So if the 19th century in South Burlington was kind of 20th century, it was like just taking off. Early examples. I love the Swiss host motel. It's so sweet. It's incredible that it still exists because this is from an era when everything from here to the east was open farm. And this was still not even the city limits to Burlington. But if you were traveling in the 1930s, maybe you had a car, little freedom, you could, your choices were either camp in a farmer's field or go into the city and stay at a fancy hotel. And these little roadside cabin courts they were known as because they were individual cabins arranged around a central courtyard. They filled the gap between camping and high style hotel. And these were really, you can find these all over Vermont along the major route two, route seven and southern Vermont. They're all along those main travel corridors usually in various states of decay, collapse. The Swiss host is hung on regardless of, you know, how it looks today. It's a really great reminder of that really first phase of automobile traffic and tourism. These were people who suddenly could hop in a car and drive to the city. That was something new for a day trip or an overnight trip. And these are the places that they would stay. And they would probably eat at places like the Parkway Diner. Also on the outskirts of town, just classic roadside Americana. You know, this, this is it. And even the name the Parkway, you know, Williston Road was the Parkway connecting, um, running through the community. All right, here we go. This is one. So I did my thesis at UVM on mid 20th century modernist residential architecture in Chittenden County. Talk about a narrow slice, but there's a lot. And this was the first building. This is 1939, uh, international style house. This is basically, you could pick this up out of, uh, Germany in the Bauhaus and drop it in the South Burlington. That's where this is coming from. And what's really amazing is that the genesis of this house, uh, built by Angelo Pizzigalli of Pizzigalli Construction, he had come to South Burlington, uh, from Canada and needed to build a house. And for whatever reason, I don't know why in 1936, the Burlington Free Press ran this rendering and floor plan with a very brief article in the newspaper. And it was about the Purdue Research Foundation in Indiana doing a study to try to identify the most cost-effective way to build a good solid house. This is 1935, 36, middle of the Great Depression. They were trying to figure out, you know, what's the best way, most economical way, to provide good housing. So they divide, uh, divided up, uh, project teams. And I think they did five case study houses, each sponsored by a different corporate entity. Um, amazingly, the concrete house was, uh, sponsored by the, uh, Concrete Association of America. So who knew? Um, but there was also an all wood house. There was a metal house sponsored by US Steel. Um, and so these various, uh, ideas of how to build a really good affordable house. In the end, they all came out pretty much the same, just different materials. They all hit $5,000. But the Free Press chose this one to picture and then just three years later, Pizzagale is building it. And I think he must have seen this. He was a mason. He knew how to mix and build with cement. And he said, I can do that. And he built it. The only difference is he flipped the plan. So whereas this has the entry on the left, the garage on the right, he flipped it, garages on the left, entries on the right. Otherwise it is spot on. And this is a really great example of what's known as the international style. Coming out of, uh, Europe in the 1930s, where following the devastation of World War I, when cities were just obliterated and in a war, what do you bomb? You bomb the cultural landmarks, the churches, you know, the cathedrals, the things that people really latch onto. If you really want to crush them, you bomb the icons of their country. And so the architect said, fine, we're going to design a style that is worldwide. Everyone will know and nobody can take it away from us. So this very pared down, clean, rigid, very carefully crafted style came out typically with these corner windows, which expressed the structure of the building. There's not a structural support at the corner. Just wrapping around. It's all a very tight skin. It's almost like the building is shrink wrapped. And also some nods to streamline. The thirties was a lot of emphasis on motion, where you get streamlined cars. The big boxy Model T is gone, replaced by the really streamlined curvy cars of the 40s and 50s. You get streamlined toasters and pencil sharpeners and everything was streamlined. A little nod to that with this curved balustrade on the balcony here, almost like you're on a ship. That was a very common model for international style, was that a house should be built and designed to be as efficient as the ships that would cross the Atlantic Ocean to Europe and back, where everything, a place for everything and everything in its place, that that should be applied to the common house. And so this, I would love to know what the neighbors said. I mean, the Burlington Airport is just a few blocks away from here. It was basically a runway and a small terminal building. And the rest was farm fields. And so what in the world were they thinking when this went up? The international style really caught fire in the 1950s. And a great example is Rice Memorial High School, 5758, designed by Freeman French Freeman, Burlington firm that's still in business today. And here we really see the international style being employed both for its, it was really economical. You could build big buildings cheap. So this new high school built on undeveloped land outside of the city center, room for growth. They could really just, other than the library portion, which is elevated on the second story, the whole building is one story, spreading out over a multi acre campus, really a new approach to educational facilities. And something we start to see in a lot of schools nationwide around this time. They're moving away from the urban center, three and four story school buildings to more suburban areas, low spread out, much more human scaled, kid-scaled. And that's where the families were. This is post-World War II. Families were lived, the suburbs were being built. They wanted their schools close to where they were living. And so we get these sprawling school complexes. Shifting away from that modernism, there's still a trend of a little more tradition with the bungalow or craftsman style. And one good example of that is this little building on Spear Street, which is right next to where the UVM farmhouse used to stand. This one's still there. Bunk, just a very simple little cottage, shingle siding. In the 30s, we see windows being ganged up like this, four in a row, two in a row. Just a really nice, it's hard to see, but they're exposed rafter tails underneath the roof thieves. Just essentially a little cottage. And this is still happening while buildings like the Pizzigalli House are being built. So there's never, architectural history isn't a, Queen Anne ended on this day. And then the next slide, there's overlap. And it's when they merge and blend that it gets interesting. And we see a lot of the bungalow craftsman style in some of the 1930s developments in, there's some around Essex Village. There's a couple streets of great little bungalows. They're probably all Sears kit homes. The Sears and Roebuck Foundation, Corporation, Gordon Van Tynne, Montgomery Ward, there are a lot of companies selling manufactured houses in the 30s and 40s, 20s, 30s, 40s. They'd be shipped in on the railroad and then assembled by a local carpenter. And they typically took the bungalow form, a big front porch, story and a half, very quaint, cozy houses. Not a whole lot that I'm aware of though in South Burlington. And along those lines, prefabricated housing really took off in the 50s. And this is from the Free Press in 1950. And it says prefabricated houses and novelty in the Burlington area before the war are rapidly gaining in popularity here as thousands of persons walk through the four on display in South Burlington. The three bedroom Gunnison house, complete with lot and all equipment costs $8,000. And the houses they're referring to were on Hayden Parkway. And this is an advertisement for a Gunnison house. This is a prefabricated, panelized house system. I think it was all basically this was one module. I forget if they were three feet wide and you could essentially kind of build your house with a do you have a door panel or a window panel or a wall panel and adjust it according to what size you needed. And this is one today. It's had siding put on it, but you can still kind of make out the basic pattern. The dead giveaway though, if you want to become an expert on Gunnison houses, which I know you do, is look at the chimney. It's tough to see, but they are box metal chimneys and they have two little slits just cut in the chimney. They're not a chimney at all. They're just hiding the vents for the furnace. But that is the telltale sign of a Gunnison house. They all had those metal box chimneys with two little vents sliced in them. Mayfair Park. Again, South Burlington leading really the state. As far as I know, this is the first suburban development in the state. I haven't seen anything earlier. And it began, this is an ad from 1940. I think Arthur Elsum purchased the property in 38, 39. So pre-World War II, we associate suburban development with post-World War II. This is before the war. And it's all about having a home that is, it's a new house. It's in a development with safe streets. It's near the city, but not in the city. We see a whole new lifestyle. You're not on a farm. You're not in the city. You're in this nice little compact development. And it has really aged beautifully. I tried to take pictures in there. There's no point because there's so many trees and the landscaping and the way that the roads have these bends in them, which really limits your sight lines. It's tough to take pictures in there to show the buildings, which is a good thing if you live there. It's really a beautiful little neighborhood and a great example of that, what would come to be growth throughout the Burlington area in Chittenden County. Here are articles about Mayfair Park building one house a week with a park, a swimming pool. Did they ever add the swimming pool? Got to get on that. But just this explosion of residential growth, this was the new Gilbert Street in a row of houses, just talking about 150 new houses going up. So the explode in South Burlington is phenomenal, fastest growing community in the state. And that is due to proximity to Burlington, to the industry along the waterfront, the businesses, the airports growing. So it was really the university perfectly sighted. Now we get into the modernist era, 1950s. I would have to say that in the mid-50s, East Terrace was probably one of the hippest streets in Vermont. It had incredible modernist houses, all of which this is the same house. No offense if the owner is here. I was worried about that. But it's been updated to suit their needs for today, but this was an incredibly progressive the roof really wraps around the three sides of the building, this band of ribbon windows, and then the backside was all glass, opening up over a vista to the mountains in the background. Of course, the U-Mall and everything else staples, the interstate was not there. But just to look at how these buildings, this was built in 56, I would guess this alteration was done maybe in the 80s, 30 years after it was built when it was seen as gross 50s architecture. I don't think this would be done. If this building still looked like this today, I do not think it would be altered this way. And a good example of that is the house on the right, the Rainer House 54. And these are all the same architect, Jim Hill, incredibly progressive architect, lived on East Terrace. He did the Rainer House, and it survived pretty much untouched. And a couple of years ago, a young couple, I think they both worked for Burton Snowboards. They bought this, and they have done everything to just bring it back. They love the mid-century modern style. That's why they bought the house. There's no way they were going to put a pitched roof on this. So the cycle continues. Another example, I love this picture, the cows grazing the elm trees. This was Jim Hill's house, the architect who designed these. And you can just make out the car there. And I always like to say, look at the old-fashioned car and look at that modern house. They're probably both roughly the same age, but one has aged. Sadly, this house burned down in 67, but very progressive. These are the types of houses that we see being built in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 50s and 60s. Very forward thinking. A lot of times for university professors and faculty at UVM, people who were open to new ideas and engaging local architects in designing these buildings. Another house on Spear Street, the Goodrich House, designed by Julian Goodrich in 1947, so right after World War II. And Julian was an architect, lived and worked in South Burlington for more than 50 years. And he designed this house and originally wanted a flat roof. The bank would not give him a loan for a flat roofed house. They said, no way. That was too crazy. So he came up with this modified hip roof, which I think works nicely. But again, very compact. It's a very small house. I think two bedrooms, combined living, dining room, small kitchen. And this is the street side. This is what you see from Spear Street. And it looks really kind of unwelcoming. You know, this is not a Victorian house with a big grand porch on the front. But again, you go inside and you look at the back of the house. It's all glass. It opens up to the landscape. And this design was actually featured nationally in Better Homes and Gardens, Five Star Home number 2207 in 1954. So here's an example of a Vermont architect, the South Burlington House, being published nationally. And people could write, you know, send your $5 into Better Homes and Gardens, get a set of the plans, and build this house in Kansas or wherever they wanted. So who knows where else the Goodrich House exists. But really, you know, these Vermont architects, this wasn't just a little provincial thing. They were really out around the country sharing their ideas, picking up on other ideas, really in the mix of modernist architectural design. Another one of my favorites, the Bar House, J. Henderson Bar, was another architect. A lot of architects lived in South Burlington in the 50s. That was where they could afford to buy property and close enough to the city where their clients were. So really, really strong concentration of architects. Jay Barr, he moved to Vermont from Michigan after working for Aero Saranen, renowned modernist architect, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, TWA terminal. Jay Barr was like lead designer on those. And he came to South Burlington, built this very pure, the closest we have to the modernist Glass Box House, if you know, Philip Johnson's famous Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut. This is the closest we come to just the essentials. Sadly, it's been altered with a pitched roof and some other changes. So it's not the same building. Another example of a better homes and gardens house, a little more traditional. This is on Brewer Parkway. And this is one, again, is in the magazine. You could get the plans, build it. And what I love is that the owners still have the little plywood sign that was on a post outside, because what they would do, the builder, you know, a local builder would get the plans and put up the house and then open it for a weekend as a show house. And that's the sign that he's stuck out front. And then somebody bought it. And so there are lots of these they're not kit houses. So these weren't prefabricated. These are built on site, but they're based on published plans that were from places like Better Homes and Gardens Magazine. The other example, the 1955 Better Homes and Gardens Idea House. This is on Highland Terrace. It's had vinyl siding put on, but you can still see the same window configuration here, wall of glass, clear story windows up in the gable. It's very long roof form supported on three beams. It's a very modern structural system approach to living. These houses all have combined living dining rooms, kitchen areas, you know, the modern family, rumpus rooms in the basement. Two other examples, also on Old Farm Road by Danforth Compton. An example of a split level house where it's much more vertical. I think looking at a section of this house, there are like seven different floor levels. I'm just going to nightmare to vacuum. And then right next door, very long and low, just set right into the landscape. Some more modern houses. The Unsworth House on Spear Street. This has been demolished, unfortunately. And the Bailey House on South Prospect Street, which has a great background. The original owner wanted a central courtyard. So the house kind of shaped like a donut. And with a central courtyard in the middle, she came from California where it doesn't snow. And so the architects wisely said, you know, let's do some clear story windows in a roof. And you'll have your central courtyard. It's really a beautiful house inside. And to wrap things up, churches, you know, the way South Burlington was booming in the 50s, people needed houses, they needed schools, and they needed churches. And so there's an incredible development of religious architecture in South Burlington. And two examples of note, All Saints Episcopal on Spear Street by Marcel Boden, another local architect who's still practicing. I think he's 92, 93 now. He just did the sailing center on the waterfront. Did this building in 1963. Really a remarkable, I mean, that's a lot of roof. But it's, it's just iconic. I mean, it just has that sense of shelter, you know, safe, a safe sheltering place to go under that huge roof. And then the walls are all glass. And they're this blue stained glass included. This is all the walls of the building. So when you're in there, it's like you're underwater. It's just the most magical feeling. Really an interesting building. And the building we're in now. Calcagney, Frasier, and Zekowski architects designed this in 1970. So it's approaching 50 years. Almost historic. How many of you have wandered down to the sanctuary? Beautiful. This is one of the most complex interior spaces I've seen. It's got these elaborate wood, laminated wood beams that come up from the floor and actually do a compound curve. It's like you're the underside of a boat almost. And then the way that sunlight, there's a narrow strip of windows behind this wall that faces due south. It just gets this raking light coming across the cross. It's really a magical space. I never knew it existed until last week when I stopped by to check out this space. Walked in there, I was like, oh my gosh. From the outside, it's a pretty unassuming building. But inside, it's gorgeous. And if you haven't been in there, you definitely need to check it out. What? Who doesn't like Trader Joe's? Come on. Delicious cookies. Trader Joe's and the development, and this is a turning point in South Burlington history. In 50 years, someone's going to be up here talking about 2020 when South Burlington built its town center and looking back at the architecture and buildings like this. My wife goes to Trader Joe's all the time. But how many of you have gone, you don't have to answer, but how many of you have gone to the bathroom at Trader Joe's and seen this? Historic Burlington. This is South Burlington, right? Right? Okay. I think there might be a photo of Queen City Park, but otherwise it's like Church Street and other Burlington. South Burlington has a history. And there's no reason for this to not say historic South Burlington. So if you know anyone at Trader Joe's, have them repaint that and get some pictures of some of the buildings I showed today. Because South Burlington really does have a history. And I think hopefully through this talk of more than 200 years of building history, there's a lot to the town. And I think you're at a really interesting point in your future. But don't forget the past also. So thank you very much. Be happy to take any questions. And we do have some microphones coming around. Who's nearby? How about you? Okay. Let's wait for the mic here. I was wondering who built, if you know, who built the Lee Emmons House, the Drew House over here. Who built it? I would have to ask Lee. My name is John Drew in 1806. It was previously owned by Moses Catlin who was very instrumental in Burlington history. It's only been like five or six different families that have lived in that house. There's a house on Hinesburg Road called the Dean House. And the people who lived in my house, they lived there for almost 50 years. And their name was D and they were cousins. I've lived there longer now. Live there prior? No, only Catlin sold the property. Sister-in-law. Heman Allen was, Mrs. Catlin married her. And when the Allens, Ethan Allen was dead then. But when the other Allens who were still alive sued Ira Allen because they didn't make any money from the Onion River co-op, so to speak. They sued him. And Moses Catlin and his wife were given all the land extending from the green, I shouldn't say the green, the yeah, the university green all the way into Hinesburg. And of course, she didn't get it, but her husband Moses did. They were ordered this property by John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court under Washington. Yes. I know your presentation was on houses, but you did include the motel on Willison Road. And I thought you would include the little shopping center, a brick shopping center that's at the corner of Hinesburg Road and Willison Road. I think that's the first shopping center of that sort where it's served the automobile in the state. And you may or may not know. Do you know when it was built? I think around 1955. So it's probably contemporary with the Ethan Allen shopping center on North Ave in Burlington. Yeah, probably. But I didn't realize it went back that far. I think so. Great. I'll look into that. Tony Palmerlow who recently passed away was the developer of those very early, early automobile-based shopping centers. Do you know anything about the house that's just, I don't know which direction we are. That's the one that's towards Swift Street. That's very ornate. And then they built those other new houses, like fake ornate houses next to them. So there is a historic gothic revival house, a brick gothic revival house there. You can tell by the really steeply pitched roof dormers. And then added on to it is, I'm not sure when they were built, 1990s maybe, queen annish interpretations. I don't know too much about that development though. But certainly those are not historic queen ann houses. You did show a brick house, but I'm not sure it was the one I'm thinking of. But there's one on Spear Street that's, now there's like a new house, like almost right behind it. Do you know where that is? It's an old brick house. It's probably a cross from across from the houses that, the house that you pictured that had the the hedges in front of it. I think it's Yes. Okay. Yes. I do know which one you mean. I don't know much about it though. Unfortunately. Do you think it was the same time period as the one you showed that? Yeah, I would think so. Probably 1830s, 1840s. Yeah. Can we get the mic? Just a minute. We've got a question in the back here, then we'll get you the mic. Okay. Yes. Going way back to the beginning of your talk when there was the geographical division, how come it ended up being South Burlington and this community did not get a name of its own? I wish I knew. I wish they had because I think that would really would have elated a lot of this South Burlington, Burlington same thing type attitude. If Trader Joe's had been built in Winooski, that banner would not say historic Burlington. Say historic Winooski. But I think in people's minds, it's just sort of, it's all the same, but it's not. You know, you've got your own identity.