Col. Stephen Van Renssaeler Ableman, originally from Albany, New York, was the contractor who built Seven Gables in 1860. The basic home design likely can be traced to a joint effort between Andrew Jackson Downing and Alexander Jackson Davis. The initial plan can be found in Downing’s 1842 pattern book Victorian Cottage Residences. Downing and Davis collaborated in the plan for Design II, “A Cottage in the English or Rural Gothic Style”, which was based on Davis’ Vanderburg Cottage, which dates from 1841.
Perhaps the most widely copied of the designs in Cottage Residences, the English or Rural Gothic cottage published as Design II, incorporated several elements common to Davis' work, notably the central gable, second-story Gothic window, and clustered chimneys.
Davis apparently would later use Design II in modified form in the design of the Angier House (1842) in Medford, Mass., the Delamater House (1844) in Rhinebeck, N. Y., the Sedgwick House (1845) in Syracuse, N.Y., the Rotch House, (1845) New Bedford, Mass., the Reuel E. Smith House (1848) in Skaneateles, N.Y., the Brooks House (1851) in Salem, Mass., the Charles Green House (1851-55) S. Windsor, Ct. and the Nichols-McKim Cottage (1859) in Llewellyn Park, NJ.
The plan was expanded and revised by Davis to emerge as “Design XXIV-A Cottage Villa in the Rural Gothic Style”, published in Downing’s Architecture of Country Houses, 1850. This was the plan of the Rotch House and was also the plan for the Reuel E. Smith House as well as the Charles Green House referred to above.
Seven Gables features several elements which may be attributable to Davis, including the dominant projecting center gable with ocular window, drop pendant, tudor rose ornament, clustered columns on main veranda, floor length windows, small side dormer gables, ornate vergeboards with drop pendants at gable corners and board & batten siding.
Whether the builder of Seven Gables had active input on design plans from A.J. Davis is open to question. However, it is likely that Col. Ableman utilized the Design II plan and the Design XXIV plan found in the two Downing books and was influenced by images of a number of the Davis designed homes which appeared in Agricultural and Horticultural journals of the 1850’s.
Seven Gables may rank as one of the best preserved and authentic Downing-Davis Rural Gothic Style Cottage/Villas remaining. |
Design II Floor Plan
Seven Gables Floor Plan
Baraboo's House of Seven Gables - 1860 |
Architectural Survey
TERRELL THOMAS HOUSE “Seven Gables”
215 Sixth Street, Baraboo, Wisconsin
Seven Gables is a frame, two-story Downingesque Gothic cottage, with its original board-and-batten siding. It originally occupied half a block on ‘the beautiful knoll about two blocks northeast of the courthouse,” with its main facade facing west toward Ash Street. Later houses now block that vista and others have been built to the north. The original winding walks are gone but many of the shade trees remain.
A low-pitched hipped roof shelters the main block of the house. A central projecting entrance pavilion is crowned by a steep, gabled roof the eaves of which are trimmed by a jigsawed ornamental bargeboard with drop pendants. The gable is lit by a modified Palladian window on the second floor. Lights of cranberry-colored glass etched in a floral pattern surround the door. A veranda extends across the front of the house and is trimmed with a soffit jigsawed in a different pattern, roof brackets and brackets on twelve thin, molded piers. A pair of French doors flank the entrance on each side. Dormers on the north and south sides of the main block are also trimmed with drip pendants as are the corners of the building.
Off the southeast corner of the main block is a gable roofed extension. The west side of the extension features a porch similar to the front porch with an enclosed area at the entrance. Above is a large dormer with a zigzag patterned bargeboard. A mansard-roofed sunporch of later construction projects from the south facade of the wing and is decorated along the roofline with a pierced wooden balustrade. The French doors leading onto this balcony are sheltered by a decorative hood. The back of the house was altered probably before the turn of the century. The gable was widened into a wide, three-sided bay and a glassed-in porch extends across part of the first floor. A one-story utility room wing was added onto the kitchen at an unknown date. To the north of the house is the original carriage house which has been much altered into a two—car garage. East of that is a tiny picturesque building with a steeply-pitched roof and a bargeboard.
The interior of the main block is typical, with the central hall flanked by two rooms on each side. Later bookshelves line the hall. Beyond the stair, which turns 90° at its base, the hall has been blocked to make room for a bathroom. To the right of the hall is the old parlor, used by Judge Bohn for a den. One of the walls is lined with books and the other three were painted in the 1930’s with scenes of the Baraboo countryside and the mill at Lime Ridge where Judge Bohn grew up. Behind The den is a room now used as the dining room, south of which are two more small rooms in the gable wing, the larger of which has a brick fire place added in the 1920’s.
The kitchen in the northeast corner has been modernized and a door leading from the kitchen to the front room has been blocked on the kitchen side, although it remains on the front room side.
The upstairs is a jumble of narrow halls and bedrooms. The large room Father Durward used as a chapel is in the front gable and two servants rooms are located along the north side.
Seven Gables is among the finest Gothic Revival houses remaining in the state. The Baraboo area contains a relatively high proportion of houses with Gothic stylizations, including the J.J. Gattiker house and the Baraboo Valley Nursery, but Seven Gables is the finest of its type in Sauk County.
It was built in 1860 by Terrell Thomas, a native of Ohio who arrived in Baraboo in 1857 to help organize the Sauk County Bank. In 1859 he became the president of the Baraboo National Bank. Thomas was also identified with the water power and manufacturing interests in Baraboo and was a promoter arid later resident of the Baraboo Airline Railway.
In 1911 Father John T. Durward bought the house for his retirement. Father Durward was the son of Bernard Durward of near-by Durward’s G1en, a romantic homesite for a family of strongly religions and aesthetic convictions. Father Durward became the rector of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Baraboo in 1887. He was greatly respected by his flock as a scholar, poet, and author, having traveled abroad three times and written five books.
When Father John died in 1918, the house was purchased by Henry Jay Bohn, a lawyer who served as district attorney from 1921 to 1929 when he elected county judge, a position he held until 1955. The current owners Ralph B. and Pamela W. Krainik acquired the house in 1966.
It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places’, December 4. 1978. |
