The Foster House in

Union Springs, Alabama Union Springs is a city in and the county seat of Bullock County, Alabama, United States. The population was 3,980 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. History The area that became Union Springs was first settled by white men after th ...

, United States, is the best example of

Moorish Revival architecture Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of Romanticist Orientalism. It reached the height of its popularity after the mid-19th centu ...

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

. The house was built by Dr. Sterling J. Foster, a physician, who built the house over five years from 1854. The house remained in the Foster family until 1947. The two-story wood-frame house is capped by a low-slope hipped roof. Its chief distinguishing feature is a two-story three-bay front porch with a deep

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame, between the tops of two adjacent arches, or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fil ...

at the top. The spandrel is cut out with

ogee arch An ogee ( ) is an object, element, or curve—often seen in architecture and building trades—that has a serpentine- or extended S-shape (sigmoid). Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combination of two semicircular curves or arcs that, as ...

es. A small balcony spans the upper level over the center-hall entrance. Double doors at the main entrance and off the balcony open into a center hall. There are two rooms on either side of the hall on both levels. A half-octagonal addition from 1896 houses bathrooms on both levels. Interior woodwork is mainly the house's original Greek Revival trim. The Foster House was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on August 14, 1998.

References

External links

* {{National Register of Historic Places Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Greek Revival houses in Alabama Houses completed in 1854 Buildings and structures in Bullock County, Alabama Historic American Buildings Survey in Alabama National Register of Historic Places in Bullock County, Alabama Properties on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage