The Charles G. Curtiss Sr. House is a private home at 168 S. Union St. in

Plymouth, Michigan Plymouth is a city in Wayne County, Michigan, United States. The population was 9,370 at the 2020 census. The city of Plymouth is surrounded by Plymouth Township, but the two are administered autonomously. Plymouth is a western suburb of Metro ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It was listed on 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 ...

in 1993 and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1994.

History

This house was built c. 1890 for Charles G. Curtiss Sr., a builder from Plymouth.Curtiss, Sr., Charles G., House
from the state of Michigan, retrieved 3/5/10 Curtiss was born in Connecticut in 1823; he eventually moved to Plymouth and was involved in moving and building houses. It is likely, although not certain, that Curtiss designed and built this house. Curtiss died only a few years later in 1893, and his wife Caroline continued to live in the house until 1901. The mix of architectural features in the house is unique in Plymouth.

Description

The Charles G. Curtiss Sr. House is a two-story wood-framed house sitting on a fieldstone foundation. It is built in a cross-gabled ell shape, with a three-story square tower within the ell. A shed-roof

verandah A veranda or verandah is a roofed, open-air gallery or porch, attached to the outside of a building. A veranda is often partly enclosed by a railing and frequently extends across the front and sides of the structure. Although the form ''vera ...

is attached to the front of the house and a single-story hipped-roof addition is in the rear. The exterior of the house is sheathed in

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

, patterned shingling, and, beneath the veranda, wood panels. The house is distinctive because of its decorative elements, including the shingling, turned posts on the verandah, and stickwork under the gables. The form of the house (a gabled ell with tower) had been popular regionally and nationally since the 1850s, but by the time this house was built, c. 1890, was much out of fashion.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curtiss, Charles G., Sr. House Houses in Wayne County, Michigan Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Queen Anne architecture in Michigan Michigan State Historic Sites National Register of Historic Places in Wayne County, Michigan