Dusty Buildings

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When a civilization ends, it does not leave behind a tombstone. Instead, it leaves stackings of stones (i.e. buildings.) We lose the remembrance of individual people, the things they said, did, and wrote, but we remember what they built because those things endure for much longer. The Ancient Greeks and Romans tell us about themselves through their Classical Architecture. We remember the Medieval period in Europe from its castles and Gothic Cathedrals. We remember the early 20th century from the Art Deco buildings it left behind. The style tells us something about their priorities, what they believed, what they knew, and what their hopes were. In a sense, the buildings a culture leaves behind are a kind of epitaph.

Let’s look through the structural epitaphs of our ancestors.

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Salisbury House (Des Moines, IA)

One of the best and most fun ways to learn about the history of your community (at least here in the U.S.) is to go and read about the history of the most local enormous mansion that has transitioned from private residence into public tour attraction. In the U.S., with a little online digging and almost no matter where you live, you will uncover an enormous opulent manor house within a two or three hour drive of your location that is now open to the public for tours. Usually it was built between about 1880 and 1930. Usually the family who built the house was your regional oligarch (or is perhaps still your current oligarch.) But by taking the tour of the house, you’ll find out how it all came to be. Usually, it is the case that someone had an enormously successful business and that led either the founder of the business, or their children, (in addition to building an opulent private residence) to become involved in local politics or charitable work, to influence the direction the community went thereafter. If that direction also helped the family business, so be it.

Taking manor house tours like this will present you with the visual gift of exquisite architecture. This gorgeous house above is one such case. Modeled after the after the King’s House in Salisbury, England, this gigantic manor house in Des Moines features a blend of Tudor, Gothic and Carolean style. It was built by a pharmaceutical and cosmetics manufacturer, Carl Weeks during the 1920s.

The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture in England and Wales, during the Tudor period (1485–1603) and even beyond, and also the tentative introduction of Renaissance architecture to Britain. It followed the Late Gothic Perpendicular style and, gradually, it evolved into an aesthetic more consistent with trends already in motion on the continent, evidenced by other nations already having the Northern Renaissance underway Italy, and especially France already well into its revolution in art, architecture, and thought. A subtype of Tudor architecture is Elizabethan architecture, from about 1560 to 1600, which has continuity with the subsequent Jacobean architecture in the early Stuart period.

In the much more slow-moving styles of vernacular architecture, “Tudor” has become a designation for half-timbered buildings, although there are cruck and frame houses with half-timbering that considerably predate 1485 and others well after 1603; an expert examination is required to determine the building’s age. In many regions stone architecture, which presents no exposed timber on the facade, was the norm for good houses, while everywhere the poorest lived in single-storey houses using wood frames and wattle and daub, too flimsy for any to have survived four centuries. In this form, the Tudor style long retained its hold on English taste. Nevertheless, “Tudor style” is an awkward style-designation, with its implied suggestions of continuity through the period of the Tudor dynasty and the misleading impression that there was a style break at the accession of James I in 1603, first of the House of Stuart. A better diagnostic is the “perpendicular” arrangement of rectangular vertically oriented leaded windows framed by structural transoms and mullions and often featuring a “hooded” surround usually in stone or timber such as oak.

Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture. It originated in the Île-de-France and Picardy regions of northern France. The style at the time was sometimes known as opus Francigenum (lit. ’French work’); the term Gothic was first applied contemptuously during the later Renaissance, by those ambitious to revive the architecture of classical antiquity.

The defining design element of Gothic architecture is the pointed arch. The use of the pointed arch in turn led to the development of the pointed rib vault and flying buttresses, combined with elaborate tracery and stained glass windows

Restoration style, also known as Carolean style from the name Carolus (Latin for ‘Charles’), refers to the decorative and literary arts that became popular in England from the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 under Charles II (reigned from 1660 to 1685) until the late 1680s. Similar shifts appeared in prose style.

The return of the King and his court from exile on the Continent led to the replacement of the Puritan severity of the Cromwellian style with a taste for magnificence and opulence, and to the introduction of Dutch and French artistic influences. These are evident in furniture in the use of floral marquetry, walnut instead of oak, twisted turned supports and legs, exotic veneers, cane seats and backs on chairs, sumptuous tapestry and velvet upholstery, and ornate carved and gilded scrolling bases for cabinets.

The Weeks family still has a large legacy presence in Des Moines, IA. The family business, Weeks & Leo Co. Inc., maintains a 40,000 square foot facility for manufacturing a whole range of top quality Private Label OTC, Vitamin, Herbal and Toiletry products. Their famous house, though, has not been owned by the family since 1934. It was their bad luck to finish their home’s construction only three years before the entire global economy collapsed in 1929. They were forced to sell the house only eight years after its construction was completed. However, they were at least able to continue living there as tenants for another 20 years, which must have been some consolation.

(more via wiki)

Salisbury House, in Des Moines, Iowa, is a Tudor, Gothic and Carolean style manor home built on a wooded hill with commanding views. It was built by cosmetics magnate Carl Weeks and his wife, Edith Van Slyke Weeks, between 1923 and 1928. Salisbury House was modeled after the King’s House in Salisbury, England, contains 42 rooms and measures just over 22,000 square feet (2,000 m²). The property is owned and operated by the Salisbury House Foundation and is open to the public for tours, public events, and private rentals.

Salisbury House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. The listing covered a 9.4-acre (3.8 ha) area with two contributing buildings, one other contributing structure and one contributing site. Salisbury House is also on the List of Registered Historic Places in Iowa.

Timeline

• 1923 to 1928: Constructed and furnished with an original budget of $150,000, the final cost was $3 million.
• 1926: Carl and Edith Weeks and their four sons—Charles, William, Evert, and Lafayette—move into Salisbury House.
• 1934: Carl and Edith Weeks donate Salisbury House to Drake University; they retain ownership of the House’s collections and furnishings, and pay rent to Drake as tenants until 1954.
• 1954: Iowa State Education Association (ISEA) purchased Salisbury House and its collections from Drake University and the Weeks Family for $180,000 and began using it as office space.
• 1993: Salisbury House Foundation was formed to preserve, interpret and share the property for the cultural and educational benefit of the public.
• 1998: Salisbury House Foundation purchased the property and collections from ISEA for $4.0 million.
• 1999: Operation of Salisbury House as a historic house museum began.

Collections

The Weeks Family amassed extensive collections of fine art, decorative art, rare books, musical instruments, historic documents, weapons and sculpture, and most of their holdings remain in Salisbury House to this day. However, in the summer of 2019, Grinnell College purchased the library of Carl and Edith Weeks and moved the collection of approximately 3,000 volumes and 2,500 historic documents to Burling Library on the Grinnell College campus. The collection remains open for research by the public, and Grinnell continues to collaborate with Salisbury House on programming involving the collection.

The Salisbury House Foundation offers various tour packages that allow visitors to experience many highlights from the Weeks Family’s collections.