JANUARY 2006 »  book review

Urban Evolution

The American Townhouse
by Kevin D. Murphy
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, NY; 2005
240 pp.; hardcover; 275 photographs; $45
ISBN 0-8109-5915-1

Reviewed by Nicole V. Gagné

The word townhouse has, for some, taken on the connotation of an upper-class residence that's far more luxurious and expensive than a normal American dwelling. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, as architectural historian, educator and author Kevin D. Murphy makes plain in his new book The American Townhouse. Murphy wisely begins by clarifying his terminology. He notes that "the term ‘townhouse' is commonly used today in real estate advertisements to distinguish attached houses from freestanding residences," and proceeds to define townhouses, for the purposes of his book, as "detached urban houses as well as large city houses, which, although attached to one or more neighbor, nevertheless are conceived of as separate entities, that is, not as a component in a group of similar buildings." His purpose here is to distinguish the townhouse from the row house – "a residence with party walls constructed as part of a group of similar buildings" – and its subcategory, the brownstone, which is characterized by actually having a stone façade (typically, brown sandstone).

Murphy traces the evolution of this familiar abode in a knowledgeable introduction that starts with the prototypes of the Classical era: the "densely packed houses" of Greece, the "deep houses with narrow street façades" of Pompeii. He describes its continuance in European architecture of the Middle Ages, where the growing populations were housed in an anticipation of the row house plan, "with narrow-street frontage and a deep lot, as well as vertical circulation confined to a side hallway." Similarly, the first American glimmers of the townhouse are versions of the row house, and Murphy mentions that archaeologists excavating at Jamestown, VA (site of the first permanent British settlement in North America), have discovered "evidence of a ‘row house-style structure'" from the early-17th century. The prize for what may well have been the first group of North American row houses goes to the 10 buildings of Bud's Long Row in Philadelphia, PA, built ca. 1691 (and now long gone).

Happily, Murphy's book emphasizes the townhouses that are still extant, which represent four principal historic eras: Colonial and Federal buildings from 1750-1817; Greek Revival designs from 1831-1850; Italianate and brownstone townhouses from 1848 to 1883; and Queen Anne as well as other revival styles from 1885 to 1926. Murphy organizes his book along this chronology, so its four main sections also become a geographic survey, following the movement of townhouse designs from the Colonial Northeast to the late- and post-Victorian homes of California.

In each section Murphy examines numerous handsome townhouses, with an engrossing introductory text that's followed by stunning photos of the house today – and Murphy and his photographer Radek Kurzaj have made sure to balance the beautiful exterior shots not just with revealing details but also with a spectacular series of interior views. As a result, The American Townhouse becomes an essential resource for anyone concerned with interior design schemes from the 18th to the early-20th centuries. It includes ravishing shots of kitchens and bathrooms, along with the expected bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, studies, etc.

Regardless of whatever era or region readers may claim as personal favorites, they will be fascinated by the information and images on every page of this book. Murphy begins his section on Colonial and Federal design by noting how the sameness of the post-Revolutionary American townhouses was actually a political metaphor, expressing in architecture "a Republican egalitarian claim [that] drew attention away from the real limitations to equality, based on race, gender, and social and economic status." These early American townhouses, like the ancestors of the row house, which developed in medieval Europe, "helped build and expand cities," both as housing for increasing numbers of people and by contributing to urban design. Townhouse groupings were invariably sited to establish and frame parks and residential squares, and so in his thoughtful account of Boston's William Hickling Prescott House – a lovely 1808 construction designed by the famed American architect Asher Benjamin – Murphy notes how it and its adjoining neighbor on Beacon Street share a site that overlooks Boston Common.

The Greek Revival section is limited to houses in New York City and Savannah, GA, but what houses they are – especially Savannah's charming mirror-image Henry Willink Houses. Townhouses of this era sought to counterbalance elegance with simplicity of design and materials, and the ones shown in the book are faced in brick and modestly appointed. However, they represent a significant advance from the early national period, as the steeply pitched, dormer-punctuated gabled roofs of the earlier Federal-style houses give way to a full third story, topped by a flat roof. Within, changes also occurred, and the taller proportions of Greek Revival houses were incorporated into these designs by raising the ceiling heights of their first-floor spaces – and compensating with a smaller scale for the upstairs bedrooms.

The chapter on Italianate and brownstone houses follows their design as far west as St. Louis, MO, and the mansard-roofed Jacob Christopher House of 1877 – one of the many houses in the Lafayette Park area that helped unite the 30-acre park (the first park created west of the Mississippi River) with the heart of St. Louis. This section acknowledges how "the headlong growth of commercial and industrial centers through the 1850s and '60s spurred the development of vast neighborhoods of row houses suited for both working-class people and middle-class families." They also initiated what was, for many, the troubling sameness of design in adjoining houses, such as the Italianate-inspired townhouses of Brooklyn Heights in Brooklyn, NY. These buildings are represented in the book by the Isaac Van Anden House of 1855, once the home of the owner of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper. Here the scale of Greek Revival design has been even further expanded, with soaring ceilings and a wide side-entrance hall – a majestic interior life belied by the relative uniformity of its exterior.

Lovers of high-Victorian design will be especially charmed by the final section of Murphy's book, in which he examines how "the emergence of the Queen Anne style [...] transformed urban residential building" by incorporating the varied façade massings, delicately turned details, wood shingles and other features of that adored style. Equally important here, however, is a range of other revival styles, usually built as reactions to the effusions of Queen Anne design. The houses highlighted by Murphy in this regard include such beauties as Chicago's John Jacob Glessner House of 1887, a Romanesque Revival masterpiece designed by H.H. Richardson (with a gorgeous Arts and Crafts interior); and New York's Payne and Helen Hay Whitney House of 1902, a Neoclassical townhouse designed by the celebrated team of McKim, Mead & White (but mostly by Stanford White), which is faced in a light stone, after "turn-of-the-century tastes which had turned against the late-19th-century brick and brownstone."

A true lover of the townhouse in all its manifold incarnations, Murphy also sees this house design as embodying a special promise for the future, and he reminds his readers, "the row house neighborhood was above all a community in which the architectural form ensured a certain degree of sociability." Murphy therefore offers the hope that "such aspects of townhouse living could provide a solution to the urban problems we now face." If they fail to do so, it will be because we dropped the ball, despite the potential of our architecture. Anyone who wishes to better understand the potential of the American townhouse need look no further than this superb book. 

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