Victorians of the Island

(And one nearby.)

Some of you may know that Alameda boasts of having the highest concentration of Victorian houses in the country. I don't know if that's true or not, but we do have a lot of them. Because it was a nice, sunny morning, I took a drive around and took some photos to show you some other examples of Victorians, Italianate and other styles, well restored or in disrepair, so you can see what the context for our project is.

Just as a starting point, here's our lovely Casa Decrepit, still waiting for the front stairs to be fixed on properly and the siding to be reattached.

The house across the street from us was built as a mirror image of our own house, twenty years later. You can see that they didn't make a real hipped roof on it.

Here's another view of the false facade. Hipped roofs are harder to make and harder to waterproof, so the facade there gave the Italianate look without the Italianate cost.

These people around the corner from us are redoing their foundation, and their shoring is not doing such a good job. The corner of the house has a noticeable tilt to it, and there hasn't been any work going on for a while. I wish them well, but it looks pretty bad.

This is a Queen Anne duplex on the Gold Coast: the neighborhood of Alameda that used to be the beach, until a landfill was put in in the 1950's. It's very nicely restored. Most of the Victorians in Alameda are Queen Annes, which were built ten to fifteen years after our house. That is probably why so many people are confused by the construction date of our house.

Another Gold Coast house: this Italianate on Grand Ave. (the big street with all the big lovely Victorians in town) is one of our role models for the restoration of our own facade.

Here's a view down Grand Ave. from in front of the Italianate for some context.

These boxy houses are also called Italianate. Sometimes I think they use the term to refer to any Victorian house with a squared facade. Anyway, this is not one of the most successful restorations I've ever seen, but this one is an apartment building.

I'm very fond of this Italianate house, which is only a few blocks from ours. It's a lovely restoration. The guy who restored it put us in contact with our engineer.

Sometimes I go by this house to remind myself that we don't have it so bad. Also: look at all the gravel in that yard!

Here's a more urban Italianate, the Frank Bette Center for the Arts (an art gallery, basically). It's right in our neighborhood, and may have been built by the guy who built our house, given the location and style of building. I'm not sure how I feel about the colour scheme, but it's not my house.

Across the estuary in Oakland we have this Italianate house, which is another restoration inspiration.

In particular we are interested in making our side porch into an enclosed glass room like they have here. Since when we have the front stairs, we use those rather than the side ones, we'd like to make the side porch a little more obviously not an entrance.

Hope you enjoyed the little tour. There are not many Italianate houses around, and even fewer in good repair or with interesting restorations. It makes finding good inspirations for the historical work (restoring the facade) a bit tough.

Technorati Tags: alameda, california, history, neighbors, victorians

posted by ayse on 03/22/06