Arch Street Historic District
Arch Street Historic District
As an ensemble, the houses of this district embody the distinctive characteristics of a number of architectural types and periods. The majority posess a high degree of original integrity. The district is located on 10 acres in Fackler’s Addition to Leavenworth, platted in 1857. The Fackler Home, known as the house on the hill, is at 222 Vine and worthy of a one block detour.
The district retains the pattern of development that characterized it during the priod of significance in that its streets and block layout has not been significantly altered since platting and it retains its stock of historic single-family dwellings.
The earliest homes are Italianate and date to the late 1860s and 1870s. Other early styles include Gothic Revival, Queen Anne, and Late Victorian. By the 1910s and 1920s homebuilders were erecting and remodeling houses in eclectic idioms such as the Classic Revival, Tudor Revival, and Craftsman styles. The Wilson House at 221 Arch Street is a notable local work of the Kansas City architectural firm Wright & Wright.
One theme of note in the development of the district is an association with the Great Western Foundry and two companies created from it, the Great Western Manufacturing Company and the Great Western Stove Company. The stove company’s first president was Edward P. Willson, who lived at 211 Arch Street. His next-door neighbor at 221 Arch street was John Wilson, the president of Great Western Manufacturing. The neighborhood developed into something of a managerial enclave for the two companies over the following decades. In 1883, Thomas Braidwood, a foreman with the stove company built his house at 200 Arch Street. Frank A. Pickett, chief engineer with the manufacturing company built his house at 1012 3rd Street in 1908.
May Millis, daughter of Lynn and Nellie Millis, married in 1910. Her letter of 1952 recalls the relationship of the Arch District with the Leavenworth Downtown and the Soldier’s Home (VA Center). Her parents “always strictly cautioned her to lock the doors at night since many ‘old soldiers’ would try to walk back to the Soldier’s Home after using their month’s pay drinking in town”. Today you can rest along the terrace of 2nd Street and Arch Street where “the ‘Old Soldiers’ would set and rest a spell.”
Thomas Braidwood House
200 Arch Street
1883; 1990
This home was built by Thomas Braidwood, a foreman of the Great Western Stove Company. It is a Gothic Revival brick home with Italianate influence and a front gable roof. A gable ornament on the east side has a chamfered stanchion that resolves into a turned finial at its top and a turned pendant at its base. The corner entry tower has a hip roof with gabled projections, a bracketed cornice, and an entry with a transom in a segmental arch and double-leaf front doors with rounded arch glass panels. The interior finishes have been meticulously restored while the exterior undergoes long-term development.
The composter along alley evokes the architecture of the Braidwood House and personality of the owner. It has multiple gables on the roof, wood shingles, irregular sawtooth verge boards, and heavy ornamentation of found art.
Willson-Hamilton House
211 Arch Street
1868; 1920
A ca. 1920 remodeled Tudor Revival home with stucco exterior and hip-and-gable roof. The Tudor influence is most evident in the false half-timbering of the gables and on a one-story shed-roofed sunroom on the east. A historic brick pier fence extends along the back alley with alternating projecting and inset courses. The garage with hip roof and multiple hipped dormers suggest a former upstairs apartment. Other features of the garage include a small ventilation cupola on the ridge, exposed rafter ends, an historic wood and glass doors. The garage occupies the same general location as a 19th Century outbuilding (probably a carriage house) and may incorporate it.
This home forms the cornerstone for the Great Western influence in the Arch Street district. Mr. Willson owned Great Western Stove Company.
William A. Tholen House
206 Arch Street
1909
William A Tholen and his brother Webster operated the Tholen Brothers Supply Company. William built this Craftsman-style home framed with wood shingles and front-gable roof with gable brackets and shed dormers. The front porch, which is partially inset, has stepped rectangular-section brick pillars that project through the roof on the front and have heavy triangular brackets, square section balusters, and concrete front steps with brick cheeks. Quarter-round windows in the gable flank a front bricked chimney.
The Craftsman-style continues on the inside with bold but simple quarter-sawn oak timbers, and molding with typical built-in furniture components
O’Donnell House
214 Arch Street
1885
An Italianate and Queen Anne-style brick home with a front-gabled roof. Diagonally set boards that create a half-timbered effect above a spindle frieze and sawn brackets adorn the front gable and the gable of the north wing. The one-story wrap around porch has a curved corner, sawn brackets, a spindle frieze, and deeply chamfered posts. The segmented arched windows with keystones are linked at their tops with by a projecting belt across the flat elevation. An interesting feature on the north elevation includes an angled wall in a second-story re-entrant corner supported by a fan-like corbeling.
Christian Meeth House
218 Arch Street
1865
This house site was given to Elizabeth E. Fackler “with love and affection” by her father as part of the Fackler’s Addition in 1858. Elizabeth built the house in 1865. This Italianate-style hip roof house with weatherboard siding is thought to be the oldest in the district. Flared eaves with corner brackets accentuate the hip roof. The front entry stoop has a gable roof with an arched cut out in the pediment and modern posts below.
You can still notice the remnants of a “fire marker” above the entrance that told responding firemen if fire insurance was up to date. The 1919 tax rolls for this property was $81.66.
Lynn and Nellie Millis House
220 Arch Street
1898
Lynn and Nellie Millis purchased two lots at this location in October 1897 and they borrowed $2,400 from a local lending institution the same month. The house was provided with water service in 1898, suggesting completion of construction. It is a Queen-Anne style house with weatherboard siding and a hip-and-gable roof. The porch features turned posts with chamfered bases, large curved brackets that create an arched effect on the ends of the porch, a bracketed cornice, a spindled frieze, and a hip roof with a small gable aligned with the front entry. Other features include an interior brick chimney, a rectangular vent in the front gable with a decorative surround and molded lintels, a large front window, and a lower two-story ell with a kitchen wing and a sun porch on the east side.
Wilson House
221 Arch Street
1868
John Wilson, President of Great Western Manufacturing, built the original home on this site. His son Samuel remodeled it as a Classic Revival-style home in 1914 covered with rough stuccoed brick and a hip and deck roof with barrel-vaulted dormers, and dentil cornice. The front entry has a pedimented surround with fluted Doric columns and pilasters, a paneled frieze, and elliptical fanfold motifs. The entry opens onto a full length brick terrace and windows with decorative balcony-like grills, round arched transoms with fanfolds panels, and keystones with acanthus-leaf carvings. A pergola-like colonnade extends from the east elevation. A porte-cochere with smooth round Doric columns covers the brick-paved drive.
Folk lore for the home includes a transfer of ownership through a poker game, filming of the HBO Truman Movie, and a reception for Colin Powel during the dedication of the Buffalo Soldier Monument. It has been a bed and breakfast since 1998.
Craftsman-Style Bungalows
1013 & 1015 S. Third Street
1920
Armilda Miller built this pair of mirror-image Craftsman-style bungalows of rough stucco that have gabled roofs and front shed dormers and are typical examples of the bungalow form at its height of popularity in 1920. The engaged and screened front porches have square-section and stuccoed pillars. Other features include stuccoed chimneys with shoulders at the first-story level, poured foundations scored to simulate masonry, decorative exposed rafter ends, and one-story shed-roofed bay windows. Both bungalows have basement-level garages and stone retaining walls.
1011 S Third St
Late 19th Century
A Queen Anne-style home of wood-shingled frame construction with front-gabled roof, skylights, and a gabled dormer with exposed rafter ends. The front porch has turned posts, sawn brackets with turned pedants, and modern square-section balusters. A decorative frieze with turned bosses and projecting blocks covers the front gable. A small gable gabled front wing has a decorative rake board. A stone retaining wall with jagged coping extends across the front.
The garage with novelty weatherboard siding, gable roof, hinged matchboard doors, and a shed addition suggests construction about 1949.
George LeMay Home
226 Pine
1900
A Victorian-style brick house with a hip roof. The wraparound porch stands on Doric columns. The back porch has classical columns and square-section balusters. Transoms cover the front entry. Next to Third Street near the back of the house is a concrete mounting block beside an early-twentieth-Century hitching post fashioned from metal pipe.
This home was also a dance studio during the mid-1900’s.
Washington C. Zentmeyer Home
222 Pine St
1872; 1950
Cabinetmaker W.C. Zentmeyer build this modified two-story frame house with weatherboard siding and a hip roof. He lived in a house on the north side of Pine Street between 2nd and 3rd between 1868-69. He bought the property in 1866. Records are unclear if it is the same home as the one you see today. Mr. Zentmeyer owned a cabinet shop on the east side of 5th Street
219 Pine Street House
1914
A Craftsman-style house with brick veneer on the first story and wood-shingle sheathing on the second story. The hip roof has a hipped ventilation dormer. The front porch has a gabled roof and is constructed of irregular red and vitrified brown brick with square-section pillars linked by a brick railing with a concrete coping. A bay window rises on the west with a trapezoid-plan. The batten shutters have candle cut-outs.
The garage has novelty weatherboard siding, gable roof, doors with matchboard set diagonally. In 1999, a large pine tree died in the west yard so the owners commissioned a totem depicting a large eagle with draped feathers.
218 Pine Street House
Late 19th Century
A Late Victorian-style house of weatherboard frame construction and gable roof. The Craftsman-style front porch has tapered posts on brick pedestals, and porch and roof balustrades with turned balusters. The front gable includes a sawn and pendant ornament. The 1876 Hunnius map shows a house at this location.
217 Pine Street House
1930
A Craftsman-style house with a clipped front-gable roof. Features include a front entry stoop with a bracketed gable roof and windows with batten shutters.
216 Pine Street House
1925
A Tudor Revival-style house of stone, stucco, and brick with a steep complex gable roof. juxtaposed with a slightly projecting gabled front wing is a brick chimney with a stone cap and weatherings. The east corner of the wing has a buttress-like element with rough stone quoins. The house features a sunroom off the west gable end, and an ell with an enclosed porch at its end. The garage harmonizes with the house with its steep gabled roof.
215 Pine Street House
1900
This home features apparent Late Victorian-style characteristics and a hip roof. The front porch has tapered square section wood columns. A wraparound section of the east elevation was enclosed after 1949. The garage has novelty weatherboard siding, gable roof, and exposed rafter ends.
Benedict House
211 Pine St
1900
A Queen Anne-style house with hip roof and front gables. The porch stands on tapered square-section wood columns with molded caps and metal balustrade.
Michael & Johanna Przbylowicz Home
201 Pine Street
1881
Polish immigrants Michaela and Johanna Przbylowicz built this home that his family lived in for 80 years. It is an Italianate-style brick house with a hip roof and bracketed cornice with paneled frieze that cost $5,000 to build. The front, east, and back entries have chamfered posts on chamfered bases and sawn brackets. The segmental-arched front entry has a double-leaf door and a transom panel with a scrolling incised design. The windows have jack arches with segmental lower edges and incised ornament between the arch and window head.
On the street near the side and front entry are large flat “carriage stones” that served as a platform for mounting and dismounting a steed or vehicle, analogous to a mounting block. A 1995 octagonal gazebo with a cupola, chamfered posts and sawn brackets with square section balustrades acted as a prop for wedding setting. Michael & Johanna’s granddaughter noted in a 1986 letter that she remembered the Tree Peony by the back porch.
914 S. Second St House
Circa 1870
A Late Victorian-style house of weatherboard frame and gable roof. The porch stands on wooden posts with molded caps, sawn
brackets, and square section balusters. The front entry has sidelights and transom, peaked and molded lintel, chamfered jambs, and a Queen Anne-style wood and glass door.
Booth House
918 South Second Street
Circa 1880
An Italianate-style house of painted brick construction with a hip roof with bracketed cornices. The wraparound porch has turned posts and balusters, sawn brackets, square-section newels with ball finials, a spindle frieze, a gable with beaded matchboard in its face aligned with the front entry, and second gable over a corner projection. This brick house is distinguished by its decorative window heads which have peaked stone lintels with center roundels decorated with six-pointed stars. The foundation, which is probably rough stone, is purged and scored to imitate ashlar masonry. Two brick wings extend from the rear one of which has a screened sleeping porch. A brick sunroom addition with decorative windows and transoms with highly textured piers of irregular brickwork also extends from the rear. The home was made into apartments during World War II.
