December 1993 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

• NPS Form 10.900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Section number 8 Page 3 Dille/Probst House, St. Joseph County, Indiana have been altered, perhaps by sandblasting. The fifth house stands at 1136 Notre Dame Avenue (141-597-29164), and was built in 1899. This house has some Queen Anne style detailing, but has flat painted sills and lintels, and has been altered by a large garage addition to the rear. Again, amidst this small number of Notre Dame brick homes, the Dille/Probst House is one of two houses that are outstanding and the most notable of those built in the 1880's and 1890's. In 1868, Charles Locke Eastlake who was trained as an architect but best known as a designer wrote Hints on Household Taste. He had no idea at the time that the book would go into reprint six times or that it would influence architecture in America as much as it did. Unfortunately, the style of architecture which came to be known as Eastlake may be said to burlesque such doctrines of art as I have ventured to maintain," avowed the designer. He prosposed that a piece of furniture should proclaim its use and be simple, comfortable, and rectilinear. He felt that the material should be honest and clearly expressed. What came to be known as "Eastlake" architecture in this country, however, was excessively ornamented with the products of the "chisel, gouge, and lathe" as Marcus Whiffen put it. Heavy turned balusters and porch posts, curved brackets placed "wherever curved brackets will go" (Whiffen, p. 123), were used with lighter incised panels and spindle screens. The Probst house, a modest Queen Anne style structure with its asymmetrical facade and silhouette, corner polygonal tower, and steeply pitched roof, exhibits all of the features described above but on a more modest scale and therefore probably more true to Eastlake's original intentions than most American "Eastlake" houses. Built just eight years after the first copy of Hints on Household Taste was printed in this country, the Probst house features all of the elements normally seen in Eastlake's furniture designs. The wooden frames of the windows under the segmentally arched lintels are decorated with incised detail; the metal string course that divides the two floors exhibits raised knobs representing stylized sunflowers, a favorite motif used by Charles Eastlake; and the turned porch posts, spindled porch frieze, and oriental balustrade are all features commonly used by Eastlake (photo 1). Although the oriental balustrade was used on a few other residences in South Bend, and obviously there are many examples of homes with turned porch posts, the combination of decorations and the use of the paneled, knobbed string course and incised panels are not exhibited on any other building in South Bend or St. Joseph County.