The Voorhies Castle is a Victorian home located in Voorhies, a small community south of Bement in

Piatt County, Illinois Piatt County is a county in Illinois. According to the 2020 United States Census, it had a population of 16,673. Its county seat is Monticello. Piatt County is part of the Champaign–Urbana, IL Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The firs ...

History

Nels Larson, a Swedish immigrant who at one point controlled all the land in Voorhies, commissioned the house for himself in 1900; construction was completed in 1904. The two-story house was designed to resemble a Swedish palatial manor, and its name comes from its castle-like appearance; while its design resembles

Queen Anne architecture The Queen Anne style of British architecture refers to either the English Baroque architecture of the time of Queen Anne (who reigned from 1702 to 1714) or the British Queen Anne Revival form that became popular during the last quarter of the ...

, its symmetrical plan distinguishes it from the style. Its unusual appearance made it a local attraction which drew visitors from throughout central Illinois. After his wife Johannah's death in 1914, Larson abandoned his castle, which sat empty until the 1970s.

Architecture

The house's southern corners feature round turrets, each with a conical roof and a

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

. While the turrets were originally a story taller than the house to provide views of the surrounding area, Larson later had them lowered for aesthetic reasons. The main entrance to the house, located between the turrets, features a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

with

Doric column The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

s and a

balustrade A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

along the second-story porch roof. The second story of the house is sided with scalloped wooden shingles, a Queen Anne-inspired element which contrasts with the roof shingles. In addition to the turrets, the roof includes both

gabled A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

and hipped sections and

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...

s, which is typical of Queen Anne works. Decorative iron pieces top the roof's various ridges, and Swedish-styled

lightning rod A lightning rod or lightning conductor (British English) is a metal rod mounted on a structure and intended to protect the structure from a lightning strike. If lightning hits the structure, it will preferentially strike the rod and be conducte ...

s are located in several places. Larson also built a

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

barn on his property in 1905. The clock tower stood tall and included a Seth Thomas clockworks, which the company considered "the finest they could make". The tower's brass bell could reportedly be heard up to away. A tornado destroyed the barn in 1976. The house was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1979.

Notes

External links

Voorhies Castle - Owner's site
{{National Register of Historic Places Houses in Piatt County, Illinois Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Victorian architecture in Illinois Houses completed in 1904 National Register of Historic Places in Piatt County, Illinois