William G. Low House

William G. Low House
William G. Low House
	1962 photo from the Historical American Buildings Survey
General information
Status	Demolished
Type	Seaside cottage
Architectural style	Shingle style
Address	3 Low Lane
Town or city	Bristol, Rhode Island
Construction started	1886
Completed	1887
Demolished	1962
Client	William G. Low
Design and construction
Architect	Charles McKim
Architecture firm	McKim, Mead & White
Known for	An extreme example of the Shingle style

The William G. Low House was a seaside cottage at 3 Low Lane in Bristol, Rhode Island.

It was designed in 1886-87 by architect Charles McKim of the New York City firm, McKim, Mead & White. With its distinctive single 140-foot-long (43 m) gable it embodied many of the tenets of Shingle Style architecture — horizontality, simplified massing and geometry, minimal ornamentation, the blending of interior and exterior spaces.

The architectural historian Vincent Scully saw it as "at once a climax and a kind of conclusion" for McKim, since its "prototypal form ... was almost immediately to be abandoned for the more conventionally conceived columns and pediments of McKim, Mead, and White's later buildings."^[1]

Just before it was demolished in 1962, the house was documented with measured drawings and photographs by the Historic American Buildings Survey.^[2]

Wrote architectural historian Leland Roth, "Although little known in its own time, the Low House has come to represent the high mark of the Shingle Style."^[3]

References[]

^ Scully, Vincent (1971) [1955]. The Shingle Style and the Stick Style. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 153. ISBN 9780300015195.
^ "Low, William G., House (supplemental materials)" (PDF). Historic American Buildings Survey. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. May 1975.
^ Roth, Leland M. (2001). American Architecture: A History. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. p. 246. ISBN 9780813336626.

Coordinates: 41°38′53″N 71°15′48″W / 41.64806°N 71.26333°W / 41.64806; -71.26333

External links[]

Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. RI-346, "William G. Low House, 3 Low Lane, Bristol, Bristol County, RI", 8 photos, supplemental material
Low House floor plans from Great Buildings Online

[1] Scully, Vincent (1971) [1955]. The Shingle Style and the Stick Style. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 153. ISBN 9780300015195.

[habs-2] "Low, William G., House (supplemental materials)" (PDF). Historic American Buildings Survey. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. May 1975.

[3] Roth, Leland M. (2001). American Architecture: A History. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. p. 246. ISBN 9780813336626.

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