Architectural Significance
The previous chapters have shown how the Stafford House was involved with significant people and events in Albany and New York State politics. There are social and
physical phenomena that surely affected the design and construction of the John Stafford house that may never be known, making a conclusive
and concise statement of architectural significance impossible. Nevertheless, enough
physical and historical evidence remains to present basic information, put
forward theories and begin to understand why the house is worthy of preservation and
restoration based on design alone.
Background
Albany was the center of cultural activity in upstate New York in the
early 19th century due to its crossroads location, but it had the provincialism
of communities separated from major trade areas. Steadfast traditions came
from Dutch and Flemish families whose influence dominated the area to the
end of the 18th century. As a crossroads Albany attracted New Englanders,
and with them came different ideas. A sentiment circulating at the time was
that they were "meddling eastern saxons, who had crept in and were daily
guilty of innovations upon the cherished habits & venerated customs of the
ancient burghers."(1) The city grew quickly after 1800 due in part to the
meddling of such men as John Stafford and Philip Hooker, Albany's first professional resident architect - both "eastern saxons."
Most architects work in a safety zone of what was expected and
acceptable. In the early 19th century, wealthy American patrons in East
Coast-port cities wanted the latest fashion trends from Europe in their art
and architecture. Their ties with Europe were more direct than inland
communities, which often received the same influences second-hand.
Albanians wanted fashion, but the elaborate and disparate possibilities
of the 18th century Classical Revival style were still new to them in the early
19th century and it was likely their naivete that allowed room for buildings that, while
aesthetically pleasing, were not academically correct. Among those buildings
was the John Stafford House.
The Floor Plan
Architects in most American east-coast cities designing in the Classical
Revival style often applied the concept of a piano nobile for more expensive,
attached, city or “town” houses. This Italian Renaissance term refers to the
location of the most public and elegant spaces on the second floor with
signifying exterior embellishments. Floor-to-ceiling windows with stone,
wooden or wrought-iron balconies graced the second-floor fronts of most
of these houses. At this level, guests would be entertained above any
mayhem and smells from the street. The ground or first floor was largely
utilitarian, and an interior staircase led to upper levels. Such houses were the
most elegant of this shoulder-to-shoulder type of architecture.
The primary floor of the typical early 19th century Hudson Valley
rowhouse was the first floor, set over a basement that rose as much as six
feet above street-level. An exterior staircase to the far right or left at the
front of these houses led to an entry and into a hallway extending beside front
and back rooms. This plan accommodated narrow city lots favored in
Albany and New York City. The raised-basement level was not as high as
the full first floor of attached houses in New England, so the potential
elegance of a piano nobile in Albany was tempered by its closer proximity to the
street and not announced with exterior decorations.
*******
New York City house (ca. 1799), John McComb, arch.; John Stafford House
Apparently not willing to forego the prevailing decorative fashion
of Europe and the New England coast, such architects as John McComb of New York City and
probably Philip Hooker of Albany used an aesthetic slight of hand. They put such embellishments as floor-to-
ceiling windows and "balcony" railings on the second floor anyway. Although
that level generally had bedrooms and hallways rather than
ballrooms, “saloons” or grand parlors, the tall
windows were functional for ventilation. A possible exception was the Eagle Tavern
(built before 1810), attributed to Philip Hooker.
*******
This large hostelry may
have had a public space on the second floor, where there were floor-to-ceiling windows in the front wall. The tavern undoubtedly was a direct
ancestor for at least the distinctive fenestration of the Stafford House, not
only in the use of the tall windows but also in the window grouping on the
side wall visible in the drawing.
The size of the Stafford House provided for several unusual elements in
the plan. The great depth of the house allowed for a narrow, intermediate
space between the front and back rooms on the first floor in which cabinets may have been built on the side opposite the exterior wall.
An oval window was placed here. While
from the exterior the oval window balances the fenestration of the Franklin Street facade, it
must also have been an impressive sight for guests as they passed from
one room to the next. On the second floor, an equivalent space appears to
have been a hall. The front room on the second floor may have been a
secondary parlor for the family’s daily use, as well as a library/office and a
ladies sitting room. Gov. Joseph Yates is known to have had a library and office
in this house. The floor-to-ceiling windows would have been a blessing in
the heat of summer. There was ample room elsewhere on the second floor
for a master bedroom and children’s bedrooms on the third floor.
@@@@
@@@@
Reconstructed 1811 first and second floor plans of the Stafford House and the altered 1st floor for Gov. Yates
When Gov. Yates had the house altered in 1822, he (and/or architect Philip Hooker) apparently removed
the intermediate space between the front and back rooms on the first floor
and inserted columns to replace the supporting walls. This would have
provided a large reception area.
He may have been inspired by the Stephen
Van Rensselaer IV House (ca. 1817, designed by Hooker), a building he surely had visited. The
latter was the largest of the Stafford-type houses, befitting the lofty social and political status of
the Van Rensselaer family. The floor plan is not known but can be
conjectured from drawings of the exterior.
Philip Hooker: Decoration as Evidence
The decoration of the Stafford House on the whole is far more peculiar
than its plan, some of it not having an obvious genealogy along the usual
byways of cultural influence from the East Coast. Among the typical details, a cloth swag from an 18th
century Georgian-style pattern book was used near a bellflower
garland from the latest Federal-style fashion of Boston. Bolder geometric
forms of a more radical school of architects are far less expected. These
influences can be found at the Stafford House and often in other
buildings both attributed to or known to have been designed by Philip Hooker.
Hooker’s life and practice have been discussed in other publications, but
their focus is on documented work, leaving the realm of attribution less
explored. The decoration at the Stafford House can’t be put into
substantive perspective without considering these attributions.
Born in Central Massachusetts in 1766, Philip Hooker and his family
moved to Albany just prior to the Revolutionary War.(3) He undoubtedly
learned construction methods while working with his father, who was a
builder. The younger Hooker's known and attributed designs show what
some would call a great natural talent that was compromised at times by a
lack of professional training and occasionally guided, for better or worse, by
the wishes of his clients. Hooker had a hand in nearly all of Albany's major building projects in the first three decades of the 1800s.
Hooker's known and conjectured work can be characterized by moments of
inspiration and clumsiness. Disparate ideas were sometimes compatible
and at other times forced together very uncomfortably. For instance,
between 1804 and 1809 Hooker oversaw the design and construction of the
first New York State Capitol. The combination and proportion of elements
for this building in the traditional Classical Revival style are very awkward.
This occurred simultaneously with the Middle or Second
Dutch Church, which was not particularly original but very much more
sophisticatedly handled than the Capitol. How can there have been such
a chasm between aesthetic sensibilities?
It will never be known who actually was responsible for all the elements
of his designs - architect, builder, client, craftsman, environment, finances -
leaving the historian to rely on evidence for educated
guesses. In the instance of the Capitol, it is easy to believe that the design of such an important structure at the middle of
local and national politics was subject to numerous dictates. At the church it is better-known. There is a record of
the church elders making design requests. It is probably not a
coincidence that the building created by Hooker for Albany’s Lancaster
School (1815), an institution originating with Pennsylvania Friends, has
overt similarities to landmark buildings of 18th century Philadelphia.
*******
part of the front facade of the Lancaster School (1814-16) and Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia
The
architect himself is said to have mentioned a New York City prototype for
the Albany Academy (1814-16). Elkanah Watson claimed to have designed
the New York State Bank (1804), although Hooker was the architect of
record. Watson was one of the bank founders. That building was similar to the Academy of Arts Building
designed by Robert Adam in London.
For Hooker's domestic designs we are left with the least amount of
documentary evidence. This is particularly unfortunate since this is the most fertile ground for assessing
the significance of the Stafford house.
Among those houses for which there is
documentation of Hooker's hand, his design was pattern-book Georgian for William
Alexander’s country house (date unknown) and Peter Gansevoort’s city
house (1802), but more progressive for the houses of George Clark built between
1818 and 1833 (one of which is considered to have been highly influenced by the
client) and the Stephen Van Rensselaer house.
This quick scan of some of his designs shows diverse and highly
derivative aspects, but it is the progressive similarities that not only give insight
into what may have been Hooker’s own leanings in design but also provide
the evidence to suggest that Hooker designed the Stafford House and Gov.
Yates’ alterations.
Judging by the body of his church designs, which comprise most of his known work, it can be said that Hooker fell
into favorite late Baroque patterns until about
1829, when Gothic and Greek Revival styles appear in his commissions.
However backward, most of these church buildings had a quiet and delicate dignity
and a sophisticated use of balance and proportion. Many were made of random ashlar masonry, which added to their Georgian look long after it was in style. Of particular note is the chapel at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. His local eminence makes it reasonable to conclude that Hooker also oversaw the design of the city's major
house projects. Urban houses for those with higher incomes in the Albany area
after 1810 tended to look quite similar, and the first of the type seems to have been the Stafford house. (see examples, and more below) In general the same skillful balance and proportion of exterior elements found at the churches is found
in these houses, but the Georgian boldness is gone, replaced by a blend of English Regency and American Federal. This is most evident in the use of Flemish bond brickwork, oval and round windows, often together as a motif,
geometrically-shaped brownstone lintels and door surrounds with incised
lines and carving, and graceful ironwork.
Among Hooker’s known works, an oval window flanked by two round
windows appear in the gable ends of the Lancaster School, the Stephen
Van Rensselaer IV House, and probably a warehouse (1827). Incised lines
in brownstone were used at the Albany Academy, the Lancaster School,
the Pearl Street Theatre (1824) and the Miller House in Utica, NY (1830).
Foliated panels were known to have been used or approved by Hooker as
early as 1815 at the Lancaster School and the Albany Academy and as late as
1830 at the Miller House. Oval and round windows were popular during the Federal period, but
the oval window was a Hooker favorite from his earlier work of the 1790s
to about 1820. Combining them with round windows was a whimsy that
might be called Hooker’s own. (see examples)
The brownstone lintels at the Stafford House are raised rectangular
blocks with a slightly larger center block. Each block is delineated by a
single incised line near the edge. Those on the facade also have incised
Greek frets (see page 27). The trim framing the front door resembles an
abstract triumphal arch. The lintel is three rectangular panels interrupted in
the middle by the semicircle of the entry arch. A boldly incised line
follows the shape of the center panel, while the flanking panels contain a
stretched Greek fret. Flanking the doorway and carrying the lintel are bold, simple pilasters divided evenly into blocks.
The Stafford House
appears to have been the first of any American building to have this kind of incised
brownstone trim. It was followed by at least 16 others built in or near
downtown Albany between 1811 and 1825, including Hooker's Van Rensselaer house and relatable examples in central
New York and perhaps elsewhere. There is considerable
variety in the composition of door surrounds. Experimentation seems to
have been at play here. The most innovative are quite a radical departure
from traditional Federal period design. (see examples)
A scan of American work before 1811 reveals no precedent for the
Stafford stonework, but in the work of English architect Sir John Soane
there are remarkable similarities. Incised lines in stone, simple fretwork and
other abstractions were a trademark of the Englishman. While Soane is thought to have had
an intellectual investment in the development of his work,(2)
it is possible that Hooker was more simply struck by the distinctive aesthetic quality
and integrated it with otherwise more traditional elements.
@@@@@@@
characteristic designs by Sir John Soane
John Stafford's house may have been the first opportunity for Philip Hooker to introduce
these Soanian ideas. His known entries and lintels prior to the Stafford House didn't vary from the
usual Federal type seen elsewhere on the East Coast, nor did they on any earlier buildings.
How Hooker may have been exposed to Soane's work isn't known, but
published drawings probably became available in the United States too late
to have been a factor, suggesting Hooker saw Soane’s work in England. If
Hooker had gone to London, Soane's Bank of England, a major work-in-
progress, would have been a draw. A doorway in the bank somewhat
resembles the Stafford doorway, but the whole of Soane's work there and perhaps other projects by Soane
completed prior to 1811 familiar to Hooker would have impressed him with its singular
character. The sophistication of the Albany-area variations that appeared
after the Stafford House does not seem to accord with Hooker’s far more
awkward work, suggesting that the Stafford-type house designs may have
been an opportunity for Hooker to exercise some free will, with the
help of certain stone carvers - more so than in his conservative church commissions. How much detail work might have been delegated by Hooker isn't known. There may have been a stone carver, or several, that brought this curious stylistic breeze into Albany. Stafford, in his obvious quest to
impress with his new house, apparently welcomed these quietly unorthodox
elements of his new house. While it's possible that Stafford himself had some influence in their use, he wasn't responsible
for the accomplished development of the forms elsewhere, making any major input on his part unlikely.
Foliate carving in panels was used around the vestibule doorway in the
entry hall of the Stafford House, added in 1822 for Gov. Yates. In his book
Greek Revival Architecture in America, Talbot Hamlin
addresses the possibility that richly carved foliage contained in panels on
architraves was used first, at least actively as an architectural element, by
Hooker. He refers to it as “this last expression of a dying Baroque tradition
[that] became and remained so popular in New York State - and there,
apparently, alone.”(4) While Baroque in its leafy exuberance, Hooker’s use of
this motif, or perhaps the executions of his ideas by his craftsmen,
was far from being part of a dying tradition. It probably has a pedigree back to English Regency architecture of the late 18th and early 19th century, and related forms are found on furniture of the same
period. The motif as it appears developed in some of Hooker’s buildings
was overtly Baroque and a bit erratic at the Capitol and the Albany
Academy, as were much of the stylistic elements, but concurrent with and similar to the development of the
Stafford type houses. It soon had a more simple and uniform character relative
to the later Classical Revival period of design. Thereafter, its popularity as
architectural decoration around windows and doors appears throughout the
eastern and southern United States within the late Federal and Greek
Revival styles. It may be overreaching to suggest without more evidence that its appearance
across the United States originates with Hooker's work, but what Hamlin refers to was more widely found and longer-lived than he says.
transom of the vestibule in the Stafford House hallway
Other interior treatments at the Stafford house, although not unusual, are worth noting.
Original to the house is a semi-circular archway in the entry hall. It is a bold, late Georgian style piece
supported by Scamozzi-order Ionic columns.
the archway in the stairhall, Stafford House
When the staircase was moved, perhaps in 1901, most of the original
banister was reused. Pocket doors, window trim, baseboards and pieces of
oval sash also appear to survive from 1811, and other trim and a plaster
medallion probably date to Gov. Yates’ alterations. Many layers of wallpaper were
found on a portion of plaster wall in the second-floor front room. The two
layers closest to the wall surely date to 1811 and 1822.
Aside from several 18th century country houses that are now house
museums, Albanians tend to think of their significant architecture in
Victorian and early 20th century terms. There are other treasures. The John Stafford house is the most significant representative of a gracious period of Capital District city-building nearly erased by later development. In a broader sense, the house may be the first built of a style that
is equal in significance to more celebrated forms of Federal period architecture in the United States that are treasured in Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston, to name a few. It is also the most elaborate and best preserved of the handful that are left.
1. Gorham A. Worth, Random Recollections of Albany from 1800 to 1808 (J. Munsell, Albany:1866), p. 32.
2. Dorothy Stroud, The Architecture of Sir John Soane, (Studio Books, London:1961).
3. born Rutland, Massachusetts, 28 Oct 1766, "Phillip Hucker," son of Samuel and Rachel (Hinds) Hooker, Vital Records of Rutland, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850 (Worcester:1905), p. 58.
4. Talbot Hamlin, Greek Revival Architecture in America (New York:1944), p. 264.
William Pierson, Jr., American Buildings and their Architects, vol. 1, (Garden City 1970).
Charles Lockwood, Bricks and Brownstone, the New York Rowhouse 1782-1929, (New York 1972)