Did you know?
Capitol Hill is the unofficial birthplace of Denver's preservation movement. Following the 1970s demolition of the Moffat Mansion (at 8th and Grant) Historic Denver, Inc. was created by concerned citizens in time to save another of our city's precious historic homes, that of the "unsinkable" Margaret Brown.
ITALIANATE (1840s-1870s)
The Italianate style, also known as Tuscan, Lombard, Round, Bracketted, and sometimes even American style, was extremely popular in the ten years prior to the Civil War. Marcus Whiffen, in his Guide to the Styles, divides Italianate into four categories: Italian Villa style; Renaissance Revival – Romano-Tuscan Mode; Renaissance Revival – North Italian Mode; and High Victorian Italianate. In all its versions, it was so popular during the 1850s that it could almost be called a national style.
The first example in the United States was the 1837 villa for Bishop Doane in Burlington, New Jersey, by John Notman. The style became popular through this villa and others by Alexander Jackson Davis included in Andrew Jackson Downing’s books Cottage Residences (1842) and The Architecture of Country Houses (1850). It is a picturesque style inspired by the vernacular farmhouses of Italy. Cronkhill (1802) near Shrewsbury, England, by John Nash, is the first example of the style.
It became especially popular as a commercial style of architecture with the development of cast iron and pressed metal technology in the mid-nineteenth century. Mass production of ornament and cast-iron columns provided an inexpensive means of ornamenting buildings. The railroad arrived in Denver in 1870, and along with it, mass-produced cast-iron Italianate and Second Empire Baroque ornament. This mass-produced metal ornament provided Denver with its first experiments in architectural style. Examples of Italianate style abound in Lower Downtown.
Defining Characteristics:
• Decorative brackets
• Low-pitched roof
• Tall (often arch-topped) narrow windows with elaborate crowns
• Wide overhanging eaves
