The Saltbox

I like old houses. I've said it before when I talked about Cape Cod houses and I'll say it again now. I like houses that have been around a couple of centuries. They've been through things, have stories of their own and that tickles my fancy for some reason. That's why one day I got into my head to research early American houses. I found the Cape Cod house and the Saltbox house. Now, I had heard of the Saltbox, but I didn't quite understand what it was. Let's face it, a Saltbox front the front is not exactly distinct from, say, the Cape Cod:

So I decided to find out exactly what made a Saltbox a Saltbox and here's what I found out:
Like the Cape Cod house, it originated in New England in the 17th century. It most likely started out as a simple hall and parlour house, or hall and parlour, plus two bedrooms above, if it was a two storey house. As the family grew, a lean-to was added to the back of the house, lowering the roof line on that side.

 Here's a cross section of a Saltbox:

The name came about because of the resemblance to a salt box with it's slanted lid:

Saltboxes were mostly timber framed houses, metal being expensive back then and wood abundant in the New World, and the exterior was covered with clapboard or shingles.
Inside, it's not that different from a Cape Cod house: there was a hall and a parlour, and at the back, a keeping room and some extra rooms, depending on the needs of the owner. Upstairs there were two bedrooms directly above the hall and parlour, and maybe some extra storage space. There was a large central chimney surrounded by fireplaces in each room, and the staircase was normally in front of the main door. You can see pictures and floor plans of two original Saltboxes here:

• John Howard Payne Memorial, built in 1660: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ny0775/
• Deborah Sampson house, built in the late 1700s: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ma0887/

And since I've been carrying on about Nantucket all this time, I couldn't miss this opportunity to speak of it a little more. The oldest house on Nantucket, still standing in it's original site, is a Saltbox. The Jethro Coffin house was built in 1686 and it's known as the Oldest House. It has a very distinctive design on the chimney, which earned it the nickname Horseshoe House.

You can see the pictures and floor plans of the house here: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ma0320/
Ok, I'm almost done, just bear with me a little longer. There's two more Saltboxes I would like to show you: one was where John Adams, 2nd president of the United States, was born, and the other is where he lived part of his life and the birthplace of his eldest son, John Quincy Adams, 6th president of the United States. Both houses are just a few feet away from each other.

See the pictures and floor plans here:

• John Adams, built in 1681: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ma0554/
• John Quincy Adams, built in 1663: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ma0553/

Just to finish off, here's some pictures of 17th century American interiors, just so you can have an idea of how these houses looked like back then.

Der Schuh des Manitu

I love Bully movies. I recently saw 'Der Schuh des Manitu' again and now I'm going to dig up '(T)raumschiff Surprise' and watch it again for the umpteenth time... I really need the laughs. Here's a little taste of it.

Two for the road...

I tend to think about these songs a lot when I'm 'on the road'...

Apartment life...

I love this song and the video is just awesome. I remember the first time I saw it, it took me a long minute to figure out what was off. And then the little lightbulb went on... It's a very interesting concept. This is 'Protection' by Massive Attack featuring Everything But The Girl. Enjoy!

Our house in the middle of our street...

I always think of this song when I think of houses. It's madness, I know...

The Cape Cod house

I've noticed that the information about the Cape Cod houses is a bit spread about, so I'm going to tidy it up a bit. Here's what I've learned about these houses:

They were built in the New England area from the 17th century onwards. That's New Egland in red and the little hook is Cape Cod.

The first houses were small and later became known as 'half Capes'. As families grew, the houses grew, and two other types of Cape Cods came to be: the 'three quarter Cape', and the 'full Cape'. They basically looked like these:

Half Cape                     Three quarter Cape                  Full Cape

You can see some actual examples of these houses here:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ma0049/

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/ma0057/

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/item/ma0042

As for the inside, the layout was basically a hall and parlour in the first one, plus a keeping room and storage rooms in the other ones. Upstairs you had one or two bedrooms, plus storage in the bigger ones. Each room had a fireplace, which was connected to a large central chimney. Along with the low ceilings, this helped keep the house warm during the cold winters. In the full Capes the staircase was right in front of the door, nestled between the fireplaces. The walls had wainscoting, because of the humidity, and were painted white, and the trimming of doors, cabinets and fireplaces was painted in colours reflecting the Cape seaside: blues for the ocean, beges for the sand and reds for the sunsets. The floors were hardwood, except in the kitchen, where tile was used.

Some examples of how Cape Cod interiors could be

On the outside, Cape Cods had steep roofs to avoid snow acumulation, the walls where clad in clapboard or shingles, unpainted, and the windows had shutters to protect them from the stormy winds. They normally faced south to take advantage of the sunlight and warmth in the winter.

An original 'half Cape'

Hang on...how does that work?

Browsing through pictures of original Cape Cod and Nantucket houses, I started wondering about something.

Original Cape Cod house

So, theres's a big chimney in the middle of the house, right? But there's at least three fireplaces AND the stairs are inbetween two of those fireplaces and apparently leading to the third. How does that work? Since I couldn't just hop to the U.S. for a bit and take a look, I did the next best thing and rumaged through the Library of Congress archives. Here's an example of a house showing one of the sides:

Front room                       Kitchen          

Here's a cross-section of the same house showing the stairs and the chimney flues:

Front room                       Kitchen          

And so I had my 'Oh! So that's how!' moment. The flues are tilted at the same angle of the stairs. Wondering why I got to all this trouble for a silly little thing like this? Because it bugged me, and when something bugs me, I have to somehow figure it out or I'll obsess about it for weeks. Yes, weeks... I'm weird, I know.

Since I showed a floor plan of an original full Cape on my last post, I thought I might as well show a more modern floor plan for this type of house:

This one is from the old Sears Homes catalogue and they were popular during the 1930s, all the way to the 50s. A man named William Levitt even planned a whole community with Cape Cod style houses. It's called Levittown and it's in Nassau County, New York.

Levittown, New York