The Vallée Family House is an historic house at 36 Monroe Avenue in
Westbrook, Maine. Built in 1914, this architecturally undistinguished
American Foursquare
The American Foursquare or American Four Square is an American house style popular from the mid-1890s to the late 1930s. A reaction to the ornate and mass-produced elements of the Victorian architecture, Victorian and other Revival styles popul ...
house was a childhood home of entertainer
Rudy Vallée during the period in which his interests in music and entertaining developed. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
Description and history
The Vallée Family House is located on the east side of Monroe Avenue, a residential side street east of downtown Westbrook. It is a fairly typical
American Foursquare
The American Foursquare or American Four Square is an American house style popular from the mid-1890s to the late 1930s. A reaction to the ornate and mass-produced elements of the Victorian architecture, Victorian and other Revival styles popul ...
house, roughly square in shape and two stories in height, with a hip roof and clapboard siding. A hip-roof dormer projects from the front-facing roof face, and a single-story hip-roof porch extends across its front. A gable projects over the front steps, with false half-timbering in the gable, and large decorative brackets as support. The interior follows a side hall plan.
The house was built in 1914 for Charles A. Vallee, the owner of a local drugstore. Vallee had moved to Westbrook in 1905, and it is here that his son, Hubert Prior Vallee, grew up. Better known by his stage name of Rudy, the younger Vallee developed his interest in music and entertaining while growing up here, exposed to music through records and phonographs at his father's drugstore, and movies through work at local theaters. By 1920 he was playing the
saxophone in local orchestras, and he rose to national stardom in the 1930s.
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See also
* National Register of Historic Places listings in Cumberland County, Maine
References
{{National Register of Historic Places
Houses completed in 1914
Buildings and structures in Westbrook, Maine
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maine
Houses in Cumberland County, Maine
National Register of Historic Places in Cumberland County, Maine