The Parson Capen House, 1683, Topsfield, MA

This post, first published in 2014, has been revised based on a better understanding of the geometry. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parson Joseph Capen built this house in 1683 in Topsfield, Massachusetts.  He ministered to the town from 1682 until his death in 1726.

The story about this house:  It is still here because it was owned by an old Boston family with extensive land holdings.Their herdsmen drove cattle to market in Boston along Rte 1 (which is practically next door to this house) and  used the house as a way station on their trips into the city. So it wasn't torn down, updated, or abandoned. We are lucky.

The pictures are from the LOC HABS archive. Note the drops and brackets. The windows are casements; in the picture they have been swung open.
For more information and photographs in color see  http://www.topsfieldhistory.org/parson_capen.shtml

The geometry for the house is based on the square.  

Here is how a square is derived using a compass, a straightedge and a scribe. 

 

 

 Once a carpenter knew his geometry he could layout a square in fewer steps.

The square with its arcs gives the carpenter 4 points - where the arcs cross each other - for dividing his square in half horizontally or vertically. This could have been used for the hall and the second floor beams.     

 

The chimney and fireplaces were to be in the middle of the house. So the builder laid out the house foundation from the chimney block. The diagram shows in the center the brick which would have formed the back wall of the 4 fireplaces  with 2 square spaces on either side: the parlor and the hall.

 

 

Next comes the fireplaces themselves, on both floors, and the flues. On the first floor the main masonry block is a square in plan, the oven needed half a square. Its flue joins the hall chimney.

 On the second floor the chimney mass is square.  

 

The house has 4 bents, one on each end and one on either side of the chimney mass.  The  fireplaces depths on the second floor determine where the 2 interior bents are placed. It's possible there are bents across the rooms as well. However, since the  summer beams on the first floor appear to be located over windows and the second floor beams do not match the first floor beams, I think not.
The Rule of Thirds was used to lay out the bents. It determined the heights of the floors and the placement of the windows. (The red arrows indicate ceiling heights.)

See this description for how the Rule of Thirds works: https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2020/08/lesson-6-rule-of-thirds-part-1_21.html 

The cantilevered end beams for the second floor have drops below them. The beams for the interior bents have corbels. These are quite visible in the HABS photographs. The cantilevers for the roof also have drops, as well as corbels in the middle of the roof overhangs on the end elevations.

 

The second floor overhangs the first floor by about a foot on the south/front side. This was popular in England as a way to protect the daub and wattle walls from rain and wind. Here weather boards - known today as clapboards - covered the frame, but the tradition continued. The attic extends out over the second floor on the sides of the house for the same reason.

These HABS photographs are beautiful and clear. Click the images to enlarge them.

The roof pitch  and the placement of the ridge pole might have been laid out from the second floor.  I have seen this proportion - the crossed arcs of the side of the square - in other First Period houses, It may have been  used here.

Note the corbel beside the 2nd floor window which supports the roof overhang.

Here is the front elevation with the drops and corbels noted. They accent the ends of the cantilevered beams which are the top plates of the bents.

 

 

The beams:
In the hall the beam which supports the second floor joists was set in the center.
The parlor, the room to the left, is larger. It needed 2 beams. So the space is divided into thirds. These beams are joined to the beam that runs between the 2 bents on this side. The windows were placed where a post would be located under those beams if they were part of bents.

On the second floor  the ceiling beam are centered. All the beams appear to be set to the side of the lines, not on the line.

This drawing may be an accurate depiction of the front elevation. However, the plans are not quite consistent with this layout.  The windows might be set equidistant from the corners of the house, or not.  They may be centered on the second floor rooms, but not on those on the first floor.

Both sets are grouped together in the same geometry. The casement windows are all the same size.

 

The measured drawings for the Historic American Building Survey, HABS, were done at 1/8"= 1'-0", a scale which is fine for concept, but not good enough for serious consideration of  construction details.  They have very few dimensions. The drawings from 1916 do not quite agree with HABS.
Some observations:
* The Golden Section is not used here. I find that the Golden Section is about growth; houses are about stability.
* The front door is not centered on the facade; if it were the door could not be opened back against the front wall. The brackets sit under the 2nd floor beams extended to support the cantilever.

4/21/22: I wrote much of this 8 years ago. The layout of the foundation based on the location and size of the chimney back still makes sense. I revisited the framing and the elevations, understanding that the layout begins with the framer who must decide where the bents will be; how tall;  where the marks for the mortises and tenons will be. And how will the second floor and roof cantilevers be supported? I explored how a daisy wheel might have determined the layout. The results were messy. The points were not useful markers for building this frame.

18th C. Virginian Folk Houses, Part 2

Please see 18th c. Virginian Folk Houses, Part 1, where I describe why I am looking at Henry Glassie's book, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, 1975, U. of Tennessee.

NB: These 2 posts have been updated with new posts as of November, 2022.

I am using Dr. Glassie's drawings. I am thankful for the chance to look at the geometry to the houses, many of which no longer exist. But I can't verify when I have a question. For example, "Is the window right there or maybe a few inches over? That would fit the symmetry.... " "The drawing isn't quite square. Is that caused by
the printing or was it real?"

I would really like to have been there as the houses were built. Then I would know. I need Dr. Who's Tardis.

So, between now and the loan of the Tardis, I have decided to make some assumptions for this next house.

It is the Lesser Dabney house, figure 45, Type 3, House V.Dr. Glassie's book includes a photograph and several other drawings of the house. It was probably built after 1770.

The original house included the chimney, but not the shed on the right.





 I have outlined the house in red.
There are 2 overlapping squares -'a-a-a-a' and 'b-b-b-b',  or 3 equal rectangles made up of 2 small squares each - 'a-b-b-a'. or half of the large square. This is where I am taking liberties - Dr. Glassie's proportions is not quite as true as I have shown them. The parts do not line up as neatly if I scale on his drawing. But when I make them neat - a couple inches either way, they fit in a simple pattern.

I have drawn the diagonals that determine placements with a green dashed line. The determining lines are a green dash and dot line. At the end of the ones I think are where they belong I have added an arrow. Where it doesn't quite work - but so close! almost! - I have added a question mark:'?'. The shed's dimensions are determined by the width, divided in 8 parts, and the length, the extension made from 3 of those parts. This results in 2 3-4-5 triangles and assures a square fit of the wing to the house.





Here is the roof frame of the Lesser Dabney house,
Figure 69, The Loft, a section through the frame of house V.
Dr. Glassie included the interior wall finish (I think). I have left out that line.



Thinking about how the roof would have been framed to sit on the walls below, I extended the line of the posts as high as the peak. Then I crossed the diagonals to make the square, and crossed the collar ties at their juncture with the rafters. The center-line of the square crosses at the top of the knee walls. the diagonals of the half square cross the diagonals of the full square at the ceiling joists.
I am sure there were other considerations: reinforcing the eaves where they kick out, and tying together the rafters at a point where they will adequately hold the frame, but leave enough head room to make the attic useful.





Both of these two houses are they were printed in Glassie's book, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia. I didn't adapt anything. The geometry was obvious and easy.

This is Figure 39, The Central Hall I House, West of the Blue Ridge. A.
It is in the Valley of Virginia. The right side, through the entry hall, is built with logs. The left side added later.
The pattern of the original house is familiar: the square - red solid lines - and its half squares - red dashed lines - with the intersections of the diagonals marking window openings, chimney width, placement of the wall between kitchen and entry hall, and the  1/4 width added to the square to give the entry hall enough space for a turning stair- green dash and dot lines.

Then the left wing was added. Its dimensions are the 3-4-5 triangle - black dashed lines - with the existing wall designated as '4'. Its center-line locates the windows - green dash and dot lines again.
The windows on the front wall are not quite equi-distant from the corners, but close enough to read as balanced.

Finally,  Figure 39, The Central Hall I House, West of the Blue Ridge, B. A house in Falmouth, Pendleton County, Kentucky.

Both rooms are square - red lines, their windows, doors, and fireplaces are on axis - green dash and dotted lines. The circle around the square - red dashed line - determines the width of the hall, the relationship between the 2 rooms. It could also be found by turning the square 45*. Those intersections also place the doors into the hall and the fireplace and closet in the left hand room - green dashed lines for the turned square.
This  house, if its chimney in the right hand room for a cast iron stove was built with the house, may date to the 1830's.

The French Andrews House Geometry - Part 2 of 2

The geometry of the floor plan of the French Andrews house focused on the fireplace and chimney mass. Two squares determined the space and the surrounding post and beam frame.  (See Part 1)
Did the framer used the same pattern on the elevations.
He did.
The red squares in the center of the front elevation show this. Starting from the stone foundation, the width of the firebox is also the height to the 2nd floor - the location of the 2nd floor beam. The square above determines the attic floor - the placement of beam at the eaves. The top of the third box is at the height of the ridge pole.
Both sides of the front elevation are squares with one longer side determined by the radius of the circle which fits around the square.  For clarity I have only drawn the square with its diagonals on the west side and I have only drawn the arc in question, 1/4 of the circle.    

 The east and west elevations are identical except that the location of the 1st floor door shown here is the location of a window on the east side.
Again the square is the determining geometry. I could have overlaid my red squares in several different patterns which all worked. I chose this one because it shows how the arc hits the center of the window, the center of the original house, and the edge of the square is also the edge of the door frame.
The north side of the west elevation is a duplicate, reversed, of the one shown. Again I didn't draw it so that the pattern would be easier to read.

 This is a geometry for framing. The squares lay out beam and post locations, not necessarily walls and room sizes.

I wondered how the lean-to was laid out, especially since it was added later and its floor plan used the 3-4-5 triangle, not squares, so that the wing would line up squarely with the existing house.
The lean-to elevation is also laid out with squares, but these begin not from the foundation, but from the first floor - which makes sense  - it was a given.

The roof pitch surprised me because it is so obvious: the diagonal through 2 squares. Given the pattern already established it came naturally and is steep enough when shingled with wood shakes to keep out the rain.

Sometimes when I see these patterns emerge I shake my head and look at myself askance, "Of course! What else would have worked so easily?"

 On the second floor plan are dotted lines indicating the exposed beams overhead. Using my calipers I scaled them and found they made a square. They are not the dimensions of the 'chambers' - they mark the outer edges for the placement of the posts and beams.
Next, drawing the arc based on the length of the square I marked where the arc crosses the diagonal - the Golden Section. All the windows in the south elevation (except the one above the front door, see Part 1) are placed by the Golden Section. The windows are not centered by the Golden Section as they would be a few decades later. Instead the line marks the side of the window. It tells the carpenter where to start to frame the window opening.

Enjoy how the stair hall space within the beams is also a square, although the hall itself is slightly wider as the walls have been placed on the other edge of the beams.

The Locke Tavern, once a saltbox - Part 4 of 4

During the recent updating of the plumbing  for the Locke Tavern  the floor between the first and second stories behind the center chimney was removed.
I took this photograph standing on the first floor looking up at the exposed second floor wall between the old bathroom and the northwest bedroom while the carpenters worked around me. They were very pleased to share what they had uncovered. Here is what we saw:
* Modern plumbing running next to the chimney stack to the left as we expected.
* A diagonal beam with stud framing below and above that do not match up - ie: the beam was there before the framing.
* A door opening into the nw bedroom  - the white angle on the right.

The diagonal beam is the beam for the original roof over the back wing .
On the top edge of the beam you can see where the purlins were let in. Over that would have been laid the sheathing and then wood roof shingles.


The Locke Tavern once had a lean-to back wing. The space was served by a third fireplace set against the chimney block.
This house shape is referred to as a 'salt box'.
Sometimes these wings were added later, the new roof laid over the existing one, often at a slightly different angle. I have not yet seen how these 2 roofs join.



For readers who don't know about the  form: Here is a picture of a saltbox c. 1715: the John Kimball House in Ipswich Mass. The name was applied to this way of  extending a house much later, in the 1890's. It comes from the shape of a kitchen salt box of that period. Another name for this roof configuration is a "cat slide". 
I chose this house as an example because Kimballs also lived in Andover, Mass. The picture comes from the HABS archives.


This means the northwest wing was extended and a second floor added over the lean-to when the house was enlarged and updated around 1790.

How was the size of the lean-to determined? I think the master carpenter used  the geometry of the square and the Golden Section just as he did for the main house.
 In the diagram the lean-to is outlined in black (a). The square and its diagonal extended (the Golden Section)  determine both the left and right sides (b).
The center section (c) is more problematic. I wish I had been able to photograph and  measure it on site when it was open. The drawings I am using are of the house before it was opened up. Clearly the framing extends on each side of the chimney block with the kitchen fireplace set in between. There are posts in the outside wall and posts on each side of the chimney, at the back corners of the front rooms. Maybe the shape is a rectangle that has sides determined by the 3-4-5 triangle. But I don't know precisely.

It would have been so easy if the basic floor plan were a 3-4-5 triangle! But it isn't. The house measures 36 ft x 28 ft.

C. 1825 workman's cottage, north of Boston

This small house, built about 1825, was one of several built on a country road across from a factory.
Today a park has replaced the factory. The house is in-town. Over the years wings have been added on 3 sides. I have cropped the photograph in order to focus on the original  house.

The post and beam frame includes recycled beams. 2 have beaded edges - probably recycled from the best room of a pre-1760 house.









Here is its section - a slice through the house showing its basic layout.









Here is the 3-4-5 triangle used to determine the size and location of the walls, the pitch (angle) of the roof                       










Here is the 3-4-5 triangle used to locate the 2nd floor joists and the ceiling joists.
The dot and dash triangle determines the height of the collar ties (ceiling joists). Its
vertical leg crosses the first triangle at the location of the second floor. The second floor window locations are also set by this line.
All this also makes me think that the house frame was laid out in the traditional way, on a flat space called a framing yard and then dismantled and re-erected on site. Contractors lay out rafters in this same way today as they frame a roof.  They use the floor of the house just below the roof as their framing yard.








Here is the floor plan. I've noted the chimneys. The lathe and plaster box around the lower one includes modern plumbing, heating and electrical systems.









And here is how the 3-4-5 triangle was used to layout the floor plan. Just as the exterior sills and walls were placed inside the box determined  by the triangle, so the beams on either side of the stair were placed inside the box. The walls, set above the beams, are on the inside edge.

The chimney locations are set by the triangle, but the windows on the opposite wall are not. They are centered on the rooms.




The windows on the side walls are located by a square -  in green - based on the shortest leg of the triangle.

Cobbler's house north of Boston, c. 1840 Part 1 of 4

NOTE:
This post was definitely a work in progress. For some of the answers please see the next posts, especially Part 4.
 I have kept this post because it shows how the different geometries are almost the same, and how they were used in similar ways.
The new post can be found here: http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/10/the-cobblers-house-c-1840.html 

Here is a simple farm house c.1840, about 40 miles north of and 10 years newer than the house in the last post.

I know the house quite well, and have measured it.
 Please click on the pictures to enlarge them.

As is clear in the photograph it is well sited, with graceful proportions, a late Georgian cottage at a time when more urban houses were Greek Revival. The shutters are updates.
It is in the Merrimack River watershed, as is the Locke Tavern  - see previous posts. I wondered if  the Golden Section used by the Tavern had perhaps migrated with a house wright up river to be used here.  Or whether the builder used a variation of circle geometry, or maybe, due to the advent of the Industrial Revolution, neither.

The floor plan shows the main  house with walls and stair. The back wing is indicated only by its exterior walls since the inside has been extensively remodeled. It was probably a summer kitchen, shed and storage space, the covered way to the barn. There is no fireplace. A chimney was most likely beside the stair. A modern stack is now outside the original footprint.

When I think about the geometry I also think about the owner and the house-wright. This small house has 7 ft. ceilings on the first floor and little windows. It lacks the frills the owner would have seen on other houses in the neighborhood and on trips to market. So I think the geometry used would have matched the house: bare and simple.

The 2 circle pattern works here. The circles are within the frame. I think of the framer, knowing how deep the house would be, laying out the circles in his framing yard to determine its length and height. The interconnection of the proportions gives the house its grace.

 The intersection of the circles - the vesica piscis - is the middle of the house, the position of the front door - see 'a'. It also determines the width of the back wing - see 'a' - and the front windows' placement - see 'b' .
I have drawn one of the squares which fits around the circles - the green x.  The front hall walls and the left front windows - see 'd' in green - seem determined by the intersection of the diagonal of the square and the the circle. The side window - see 'e' in green - is centered by the circle and the square.
The shed's width follows the  geometry of the main house, but its length doesn't quite - Two of the windows in the shed seem to determined by the circles' intersections - see 'c' in red.

 I wonder if my dimensions are off: the house is swathed in vinyl. The main wing has been expanded which makes accurate measurement of the original size somewhat problematic. The back wing has been rebuilt at least twice in the last 170 years. The length of the wing is off by about 12". If my circles are 4" too small, or I've missed the extra thickness of a plumbing wall, the geometry fits.   
Or as I found out, I was using the wrong geometry!





Unlike the 1830's house which used one geometry for the plan, another for the elevation, this house uses the same pattern for both. Here is the side elevation with dot and dash lines to indicate 1st and 2nd floors.

 The red circles are the two circle configuration that was used for the floor plan. Here the intersection of the circles marks the height of the front and back walls, the beginning of the roof. The center of the circle marks the placement of the 2nd floor; the top of the circle, the collar ties for the roof.


I am not sure how the roof pitch and the ridge were determined. I have rejected several possibilities as being too complex for this simple house. This one may the answer:
 The top of the wall , which is also the centerline of the vesica piscis, is obviously the beginning of the roof , therefore, one point - see 'a'. If the square of the house is  divided in half and a diagonal drawn -  see green square, rectangle and diagonal -  a second point is determined by the intersection of the diagonal and the circle  - 'b' in green. The line through 'a' and 'b' is the roof slope, about a '9/12 pitch' in modern terms.

Does the geometry determine the design or the structure? In this case I think both.

Why doesn't this geometry show up in the pattern books? Was it just something that was common knowledge? Or was it passed from master to apprentice as privileged knowledge?

1830's cottage north of Boston, Part 2

This is an update to the post about the floor plan of this house written in August, 2010.

 Last week I realized that the builder of this cottage would probably have used the same kind of geometry for the elevations that he used for  the floor plan.

This is an obvious observation. Really! Makes me roll my eyes to know that it only took me 3 years to figure this out!
It is clear from the photograph that the house has been expanded over the years. The siding was 'updated' about 40 years ago. My diagrams refer only to the part of the house under the gable, to the right.




So here are the diagrams and drawings - click to enlarge:

The floor plan is shown with the complete daisy wheel for reference. The main rectangle of the house plan is determined by where 4 petals of the daisy touch the circle; the wing's size determined by the arcs of 2 of the outer circles. This is a straight forward use of circle geometry. The elevations use a slightly different pattern.





The side elevation measure by me and drawn to scale:

.
The circle geometry I think the builder used for the elevations:
The upper diagram shows 2 circles intersecting - the outside of each touches the center of the other. The place where the circles overlap is called a vesica piscis ('fish bladder' in Latin). The red line bisects the vesica piscis.
The lower diagram shows one circle with 4 circles intersecting it, creating 4 intersecting vesicae piscis. The red lines are only partially shown for clarity.
The diagrams show how the shape and dimensions of the elevation were determined.

On the elevation the circle is the same size as that used for the floor plan. Its radius is the length of the wall. It surrounds the house. Its center is the fat red line between the second floor windows. The upper circle is drawn in full, but only part of the lower circle is shown. The lines through the vesicae piscis determine the peak of the roof, the center of the first floor windows.
I have drawn only part of one of the circles on the sides, the left one. The vesica piscis there follows  the wall of the house.
 Note that the center of the main circle not only positions the 2nd floor windows but also marks the square of the wall, the top of which is where the builder will set his rafters.The square is outlined in green. The circle which determined the floor plan, its dimensions, is also used to determine dimensions of the elevations.


for part 1 see: http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2010/08/regulating-lines-1830s-cottage.html
for Part 3 see: http://www.jgrarchitect.com/2014/09/how-to-construct-square.html

Reading House, c. 1795, Part 2: Plan

Here is the house -  about 5 years ago . 
When the owners finish working on it, I'll photograph it again.

Its form - 2 stories, one room deep, 2 rooms wide with a center entrance - was by 1790, a design in use for over 100 years.

Over that time placement of the chimneys and the fireplaces had changed, first to the center and then to the rear of of each side - allowing a central hall where the chimney had been -  as is seen here.

The original floor plan is seen in the Locke Tavern, c. 1740 -to the right.  It has its 2 fireplaces and central chimney in the center behind the stair. The plan consists of 2 equal squares - on the right side in red  - and a square rear wing to the lower left.

Note the location of the corner windows -'d' - determined by the diagonal and the arc of the length of the side of the square.







The plan of the Reading house, 50 years later, is also made up of 2 squares -in red. The placement of the outside windows on the front facade - see 'a' - is similar to the Locke Tavern placement on the side walls – ‘d’.  The second windows in both houses seem to be set by how the house will look from the outside, not how a room will feel inside. Or the rectangle may have determined framing dimensions. The appearance might have been secondary, as it was traditional and what was expected.  .  

The placement of the chimneys and the center hall has complicated the relationships. The front hall requires enough width for a stair and passage to the back wing, about 8 feet. The fireplaces make the rooms shallower than the box of the house suggests from the outside. The square and its proportions needs to be adjusted, tweaked. The contractor and I know from working on the house that the hall is bound on each side by 8”x8” beams. This is not seem in the rhythms of the exterior, but does create the square rooms on both floors.

The first floor formal room  - the top room - is square, its fireplace centered on the back wall. However,the second front window is not quite within the symmetry of the first by about 3 inches.  The side window does sit on the center line of the square of the room -see 'c' in green - on both sides.
The room below - outlined in green - is 3 inches longer in one direction than the other. It has a cooking fireplace with a brick oven on the right side. The front windows are almost symmetrical to each other, but not quite: off again by a few inches. They also don't quite sit on the lines dividing the room into the parts of the rectangle -see 'b' in green. The small squares within the larger one which seem to define the window placement on the exterior -  see previous post - seem not to be part of the interior layout.

Nevertheless, the rooms are lovely. They feel fine. Why?
I think the symmetry overrides our ability to see the imbalance. And the imbalance is too small.
I have measured many rooms in old houses that feel symmetrical but are not. While a row of  paintings hug with uneven spacing would be immediately noticed, somehow we have trouble distinguishing 3 inches of difference at the scale of a room. Surprisingly, 4 inches of difference is obvious, easy to catch.


  To read about the design of the front entrance, see my '1795 House' posts from late 2009 through early 2010.

12/31/15: updated

Reading, MA, House c. 1795, Part 1: Window Placement

In 2009,  I was asked to replicate the entrance in this photograph. The  house in Reading, Massachusetts, c. 1795, had lost the original front door, fanlight, columns and architrave in the 1950's.

I found then that the regulating lines of the house told me what the dimensions of the entrance should be and determined the curve of the fanlight.

Recently I realized I had not looked at the placement of the windows in this house. I wondered if the proportions here would match those of the Locke Tavern.
The basic pattern is similar: a square on each side of the front door, the entry dimension determined by the diagonal ( the Root 2 Rectangle). The windows for both houses are balanced around the center of the squares. Did the master carpenters, the house wrights, use the same regulating lines?

Not quite. The Locke Tavern elevation shows the diagonal and the arc marking the center line for the windows. The Reading house elevation shows that the intersection of those lines - 'a' in red on the left side  - doesn't seem to mark anything.

However, the square divided in half -'b' in green on the left side - determines the top of the windows.
The right side shows the large square divided into 4, the length of the side of the smaller squares laid out as an arc,
The intersection of the two falls is the vertical center line for the width of the windows - 'c' in green on the right side. Then notice how the horizontal center line - 'd' in green on the right side - determines the center line for the height of the windows, both on the first and second floors.

The settlers in Reading came from Berkshire, England. They named their new town after Berkshire's county seat.The settlers in Andover, 10 miles north and the location of the Locke Tavern, came from Hampshire, England, the county next door to Berkshire. Did they have different framing traditions? Could the house wrights have come from other parts of England and been trained in other layout methods? Or did the method for designing the 1740 elevation in Andover evolve over 55 years to produce the elevation in Reading in 1795?

I inch along with this...finding the lines for one building, then finding the next building uses the geometry differently. I think I've solved a riddle, but discover another. I have deliberately focused on  designing (layout), not framing - although I am quite sure they are intertwined.
I do trust my eye. I feel the proportions. When I find the lines that validate that feeling I laugh! Joy!  I post so that others can see the ideas and continue the exploration.

To read more about that design see my '1795 House' posts from late 2009 through early 2010.

12/31/15: I have corrected my post.
The ratio used here is often referred to as the Root-Two Rectangle as it derives from the diagonal of a square.
I doubt the carpenters laying out this work used that name - it's cumbersome. Unfortunately  we do  not know what they called that ratio or any of the others.

The Locke Tavern - part 3 of 4

The front elevation of the Locke Tavern has 5 windows across on the second floor and 2 on either side of the front door on the first floor.  This is the standard look of a 'Colonial' house. 

So why do I recognize immediately that this is an old house, not a modern reproduction?

Before I began to measure and draw the geometry of these houses, I would have said, "It feels right".  I could have cited the window sizes, the clapboard width, the casings and the corner boards, the space between the top of the windows and the eaves, etc... but I couldn't have discussed the shape.

However, now I also see the proportions of the facade, how the windows were placed symmetrically around the center of  each square side of the house and were set to reinforce that shape.
I have added the lines that show this on the elevation. They are the Regulating Lines for this house.

I have drawn the arcs only on one side - in green - for simplicity - it's getting crowded!




To help explain this here is a square and its diagonal - in blue. The radii of the arcs - in red and green - are the length of the side. The point of intersection is where the arc crosses the diagonal - one side in red, the other in green. The resulting lines - red and green center lines - are the locations for the windows. The ratio between the side (a-a') and its length thus divided (a-b, b-a')  is the Golden Section.

 It still "feels right." Now, however, I follow the rhythms. I see the pattern.
  I can even tell you about it, although maybe not without paper!

The relationships on the side elevation are not pure. While the room  to the left does follow the pattern. The window placement for right square doesn't 'compute'.
The windows are, however, balanced across the length of the wall.


I looked at the floor plan -

The placement of the windows on the front of the house - to the right -  so clear in the proportions of the elevations, is not echoed the floor plan - none of the windows line up with the proportions of the plan. The west windows - lower right room - are clearly determined by the diagonals: the room has balance. But those in the back - left - room: one does, one doesn't.

I wonder if perhaps the 2 squares which make up the plan were mainly used to determine the foundation, the center of the support for the fireplaces and chimneys, but not the framing or the window layout.


As a check, I laid out the geometry on the 1/4"=1'0" measured drawings for this house. The proportions remain just as clear.  
Please remember when you look at the drawings that exterior shutters were not in use in New England until after the 1820's. They are an addition  - not part of the original design.