Today’s post is by John LeGloahec, Archivist in the Electronic Records Division at the National Archives in College Park, MD.
Here we are in the Dog Days of August and maybe some summer thunderstorms are pouring down rain like cats and dogs. Did you know there are properties in the National Register of Historic Places that are specific to Cats and Dogs?
In Gurdon, Arkansas is the Hoo-Hoo Monument (National Archives Identifier 26141731) “built in 1909 and located in the southeast comer of the Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot parking lot at North First and Main streets . . . a square granite and bronze monument with Egyptian Revival detail, designed by artist George J. Zolnay.”
“The Hoo-Hoo Monument is a square granite stone with a bronze plaque inset on the northwest side, and engraved inscription on the Southeast side, and two figurative bronze sculptures of animal forms on top . . . The bronze plaque inset on the Northwest side is divided into three horizontal levels and is decorated with Egyptian Revival-influenced reliefs and engravings. The top level or pediment is illustrated by a centrally placed image of a two-headed bird with expansive wings. The second level contains a small centrally framed and detailed relief of Hotel Hall, a two-story wood building formerly located adjacent to the site, where the fraternal order was originated, and upon which the plaque was originally placed . . . In the lower left-and right-hand comers of the inscription area are engraved images of cats with arched backs framed by circles within squares. The inscription area is bordered on the right and left sides by reliefs of two standing Egyptian male figures. Beneath these figures are repeated in relief the image of the two-headed bird from the top level, and beneath these, facing at a downward angle, are reliefs of two female faces . . . On top of the monument two realistic bronze sculptures of cats with arched backs face in opposite directions at the furthest ends of the block. These were placed on the monument in 1927 when the bronze plaque was moved from its location on the site of Hotel Hall, and had not accompanied the plaque prior to that time.”
In Leesburg, Virginia on the grounds of the General George C. Marshall House (National Archives Identifier 41679081), “there were always dogs at Dodona Manor also—dogs in all shapes and forms, trained and untrained, pedigreed and mutts. An especially beautiful bird dog was a gift to him in 1950 from the children of Norway . . . The home of General George Catlett Marshall occupies a hilltop site flanked on the south by East Market Street (Highway 7) and on the north by Edwards Ferry Road, which unite as Market Street and enter the old section of the town of Leesburg, Virginia. During Marshall’s residency the front yard on the west overlooked Leesburg’s quaint old downtown, which lies beyond a sweeping dip of land on a rise only a bit lower than the hill on which the Marshall house stands. General Marshall did little to this house other than to live in it and cherish it as home. He lived here as General of the Army under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State under President Truman. In its rooms, and among the furrows of its vegetable garden, he pondered the great events in which he was involved, from the World War II to the peacetime Marshall Plan for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize.”
“Dodona Manor is a rambling old Virginia house of painted brick with green-shutters and a red-painted tin roof. It is considered Virginia vernacular. If one were to attach a style to it, judging entirely on form, perhaps it could be called “late Federal.” The very spare ornamentation is Greek Revival. The house was begun in the late 1820s and brought to completion externally by about the time of the Civil War, with two major additions, one to the south, ca. 1850, and a slim, long rear service wing built within the following decade. The three blocks form a T shape, with the crossbar to the west, forming the main facade.”
In Charlottesville, Virginia, is Recoleta (National Archives Identifier 41680093) “a Spanish Colonial Revival house built in 1940 for University of Virginia music professor Harry Rogers Pratt and his wife, Agnes Edwards Rothery Pratt. Agnes Rothery was a prolific writer of fravel books who also authored three books on her adopted home of Virginia: Houses Virginians Have Loved, New Roads in Old Virginia, and A Fitting Habitation.”
“Recoleta’s cinder block exterior was originally painted terra cotta with a pale yellow wash for a stucco effect (the present color is similar). Decorative rafter ends project under the eaves of the red Spanish tile gable roofs and plain masonry chimneys—one for the boiler, another for fireplaces-rise above . . . The loggias are supported by rustic timber posts with curved brackets and they have ceilings with exposed viga-like log rafters (replacements of the originals) from which hang original or early pierced metal globe light fixtures. The east loggia shelters a square niche in the house wall with carved, painted, and grated Norwegian wood doors. The niche contains an Egyptian-style cat sculpture which has been there since the 1940s.”
“In the southwest comer of the dining room is a doorway that leads to a hallway that connects to the entrance foyer, dining room, and kitchen. Originally this doorway was fitted with double-leaf wood doors, but after construction Agnes Rothery had them replaced with wrought iron grillework doors to keep her Siamese cats out of the living room (there are cat doors throughout the house).”
In Tulsa, Oklahoma is the City Veterinary Hospital (National Archives Identifier 86512177), constructed in 1942, “a one-story, Streamline Moderne style, light-colored brick, U-shaped building. Designed by Tulsa architect, Joseph R. Koberling, Jr., for Dr. William F. Irwin, a local veterinarian, the building was and remains a small animal veterinary hospital.”
“The building has a concrete foundation and a flat asphalt roof with tall parapet walls. The more visible walls of the building consisting of the east, south, and eastern one-third of the north elevations, are of a light- colored face brick. The west two-thirds of the north wall, divided into five dog runs by red brick walls and chain link fence, is of common brick which has been painted to blend with the even-color of the face bricks. The non-historic rear, or west, elevation is made of concrete block, also painted to blend with the dominant face brick. One of the dominant features of the building is its clear expression of the Streamline Moderne style. This includes a flat roof; light-colored wall surface; multiple curved walls; glass block windows which wrap around the front corners; an octagonal window and cartouche; and, most importantly, a strong horizontal emphasis reinforced by multiple stretches of banding. The building can be vertically divided into three sections. The lowest portion, a flush section of brick laid in a stretcher bond, extends upwards from the ground to the stone stringcourse. Notably, the stringcourse only wraps around the front section of the building. As such, on the back south side of the building, a row of header brick separates the lower wall from the middle wall. On the opposite side, the rear north wall is not ornamentally treated due to the location of the dog runs.”
In Key West Florida, one can visit the Ernest Hemingway House (National Archives Identifier 77871905) and be greeted by several of the original residents, Hemingway’s cats. “Ernest Hemingway bought this Spanish style house in Key West, Florida in 1931. He lived there with his second wife, Pauline until 1940 when they separated. During this important period of his career he wrote many books, including Death in the Afternoon, Green Hills of Africa, Winner Take Nothing, and To Have and Have Not, which has a Key West setting, and he probably also worked on For Whom the Bells Tolls, which appeared in 1940. While living here Hemingway worked long hours, rising very early to write in the study above the pool house, but he also traveled extensively and cultivated the image of rugged Papa Hemingway.”
“Descendants of the original Hemingway cats live there still. Ming, a Siamese tom, is master of the feline domain. His mastery, and defense of it, is so complete that today the cats are badly inbred. Their life span is short, and one particular deformity has appeared—many have six, and occasionally seven, toes on each foot.”
“Lying on the fountain, curled up on front porch chairs prowling the grounds, there are more than 50 cats in residence, most descendants of Hemingway’s cats — with names such as Zane Gray, Ava Gardner, Erroll Flynn and Marilyn Monroe. Descended from a charming but deformed old Tom the author brought back from a boat trip to Havana, a lot of them have six toes.”
At the other end of the country, in Seward, Alaska is the Jesse Lee Home for Children (National Archives Identifier 75325592) that “opened in 1926. Many Alaska Native children orphaned by epidemics, particularly devastating in western Alaska where medical care was extremely limited, lived at the home. The home was one of the largest and most stable institutions to care for and educate the hundreds of orphaned children. A number of Alaska’s outstanding Native leaders were raised and educated at the Jesse Lee Home during its Seward years. John Ben “Benny” Benson, Jr., from Chignik, was one of the children who lived at the Jesse Lee Home. In 1927, his design was selected for Alaska’s territorial, and later state, flag. While the Methodist Women’s Home Missionary Society owned and operated the home, it received financial support from the territorial and federal governments. The period of significance for the Jesse Lee Home begins in 1926 when it opened in Seward, and ends with its temporary closing in 1942 by the U.S. Army. Although it reopened in 1946, the Jesse Lee Home no longer served as a school, government-provided food supplies usurped the gardens and livestock, and social policy favored placing orphaned children in foster homes instead of institutions.”
“In 1936, construction began on a dining hall. A.S. Hanson, Seattle, was the construction supervisor. Thousands of school children across the United States and Mr. and Mrs. Henry Pfeiffer contributed money. The school children’s fund raiser commemorated Balto, one of the lead sled dogs of a team that participated in the effort to get serum from Nenana to Nome to prevent a diphtheria epidemic in the winter of 1926. The new building was named the Balto Building.”
In Grandin, North Carolina, is the John Landon Jones House, Riverside (National Archives Identifier 47719387), “the name of both a farm and a ca. 1860 two-story, brick, Greek Revival-style house located off the southwest side of Grandin Road (SR 1552) nearly a half mile southeast of its junction with NC 268. In the area of northeastern Caldwell County known as Happy Valley, Riverside is situated on the south side of the Yadkin River, from which setting it derives its name. The nominated property surrounding the house consists of approximately 22.6 acres, the northeastern corner of the 500 total acres of Riverside farm. Included in this acreage are the ca. 1860 house with its now-attached brick kitchen; a small 1985 pump house west of the brick kitchen; a 2002 house for the family cats behind (south of) the brick kitchen; a chain-link-fenced dog pen with a concrete-slab floor and three small dog houses located around 150 feet east of the house; and a combination equipment shed and workshop, built in 1985 but more than doubled in size and remodeled in 2003, located approximately 150 south of the house. The built environment of Riverside is surrounded by a rural landscape that helps the property retain its historical sense of place.”
“Directly behind (south of) Riverside’s brick kitchen and just northeast of the site where the smokehouse stood until ca. 2001 is the house where the owners’ cats live. It is a square, brick building, laid in seven-to-one common bond, with a pyramidal roof topped by a “belfry” with a cat-shaped weathervane. The east elevation has a pair of French doors, the west elevation has a single French door, the north and south elevations have five-panel doors, and all doors are headed by a transom. Latticed porches project from the south and west sides of the building. Inside, the cat house is divided into several rooms, and a narrow stair on the north side leads to a sleeping loft.”
In Stockbridge, Massachusetts one will find Wheatleigh (National Archives Identifier 63794122), “located in the northeast corner of the town of Stockbridge, placing it roughly in the center of the Berkshire Hills. Originally comprised of 250 acres, this late nineteenth century estate included a formal 33-room mainhouse, four greenhouses, a water tower, a ten car garage with two apartments above, a superintendents house, an ice house, a hay and carriage bam, and three gatehouses. Additionally, the grounds were planned as a private park and were landscaped with azaleas, rhododendrons, and mountain laurel.”
“The most prominent feature of the Wheatleigh Estate is the main house which occupies a plateau of wooded hills affording a commanding view of the nearby Stockbridge Bowl (Lake Maheenac) and the surrounding countryside. Designed in 1893 by the Boston Firm of Peabody and Steams, Wheatleigh is an early and very fine example of an “American Renaissance” Italian villa, a type which became popular for large estates at the turn of the century. . It is symmetrically designed with a U-shaped plan consisting of a central block extended laterally by hyphens and end pavilion and to the rear (east) by a bedroom wing on the north and a loggia and summer house on the south. It is constructed of buff Roman brick laid up in Flemish bond and is trimmed with terra cotta both supplied by the Sayerville Quarry and Terra Cotta Company. With the exception of the one story hyphens and loggia, it rises two stories to overhanging low pitched, slate covered hip roofs.”
“The house was highly esteemed in its own time and was published in the American Architect Building News, International Edition, Vol. #76, dated April 5, 1902, p. 6, with seven photographs, and a number of sketches, and a few years later in the same magazine. Vol. #32, dated October 1912, p. 360. Charles McKim of the New York firm of McKim, Mead White, and a leader of the American Renaissance, heavily praised the house to friends, and in a letter to Edith Wharton written in 1897, he wrote “it is one of the most successful examples of the Italian Villa type . . . adapted to modem uses.” Peabody was the main designer of the house and was assisted by Julius Schweinfurth, a noted renderer of the day.”
“H.H. Cook died on October 10, 1905, leaving four daughters. He bequeathed each an annual income of $15,000 for six years and at the end of that time each was to receive two and a half million dollars in cash ($2,500,000.00). In addition, their husbands and children were liberally provided for. To his daughter, Georgie Bruce, wife “of Carlos de Heredia, Mr. Cook bequeathed his country seat, Wheatleigh in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Georgie Bruce Cook married Carlos de Heredia, nobleman with the title of count on February 4, 1891. He was a native of Cuba, educated in France and England and was a member of the Lenox Club, the Lenox Horticultural Society, and the Mahkeenac Boat Club. In 1921, Mrs. Carlos de Heredia donated the use of the formal gardens at Wheatleigh for sunset services by the Trinity Church of Lenox. These vespers in the formal gardens became a tradition which lasted for 24 years. Many distinguished persons attended. Mrs. de Heredia was generous to many institutions and she usually gave anonymously. She contributed to the building of the Music Shed at Tanglewood and helped found the Berkshire Festival.”
“When the Countess died on December 13, 1946, her two nieces inherited the entire estate which they immediately sold to a retired real estate dealer from Chicago, a Mr. Joseph Lutske. He purchased the estate for $70,000 on June 10, 1949 and the following month sold the main house plus 21 acres to the Boston Symphony Orchestra for $25,000 keeping the remainder for an investment (this included the water tower as well as the main house. The tower was one of the tallest in the Berkshires when constructed. Its water was pumped from Indian Springs, a 20acre lily pond located on the property. It has been known as the “Poodle Tower” for Mrs. de Heredia buried her dogs there). The BSO retained possession until November 13, 1957 when it was sold to Philip Barber.
This post is part of an ongoing series featuring records from the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) and National Historic Landmarks Program Records, 2013 – 2017 (National Archives ID 20812721), a series within Record Group 79: Records of the National Park Service.