Photos of "Lost London"

Drury Lane.Covent Garden.1880
View in Drury Lane looking south and showing the St Mary le Strand steeple.A 134 foot tall Maypole was erected on the site of the church in 1661 which Alfred Marks describes in 'Photographs of Old London'.He also notes the gabled house in this view was formerly the "Cock and Magpie" tavern "a place of entertainment in the reign of Henry VII."

Wych Street.Covent Garden(?).1880
"These are very good specimens of the overhanging houses of the beginning of the seventeenth century.It is only to be regretted that the extreme narrowness of the street made it impossible to give the full effect of this picturesque group" writes Alfred Marks.He goes on to inform us that Dr.Johnson worshipped at St.Clement Danes Church which can be seen behind the old houses.

White Hart Inn Yard.Borough.1880
"The introduction of the railways has greatly changed the character of these old inns.The 'George' alone seems now to do any considerable business in the 'receipt of travellers';in other cases the business of a tavern has superseded that of an inn and the great courtyards are either being gradually encroached on by warehouses or have been taken up by railway companies as receiving offices."

The Oxford Arms Inn Warwick Lane.City.1875

Just a handful from an assemblage of about three dozen photos at Skyscraper City, via Titam et le Sirop d'Erable.

Entrance house at Sandringham, 1896

Found at Bygone Years, which has lots of interesting photos.

How the rich are suffering

The Wall Street Journal reported today that the price of a Manhattan townhouse was marked down 25%, and that the discount may reverberate through the neighborhood:

Brokers were in disbelief when Shelley and Donald Rubin, founder of a giant health-care network and a Himalayan art museum in Chelsea, slashed the asking price of their East 70th Street townhouse by 25% to $14.9 million in May after it had sat on the market for about a year...

That was one of the steepest one-time markdowns for a high-end residential property in recent memory... Some say this deal, in effect, re-prices the market for East Side townhouses because buyers and brokers will now use the Rubins' pricing as a benchmark for similar properties.

How much are they suffering?  Well...

The Rubins purchased their townhouse in 1995 for $5.05 million, according to Streeteasy...

They were only able to triple their money in 15 years.  So very sad.  Excuse me - I have to stop blogging for a few minutes to regain my composure. 

Belle Grove - an immense plantation home

Front and rear views of a Greek Revival mansion in Iberville Parish, Louisiana.

Built 1857 by John Andrews, who sold it to Stone Ware. Occupied by Ware family until circa 1913.

If this interests you, click the images for larger images, and go to the Shorpy links for gigantic wallpaper views and an informed discussion of the decline of this home.

The Friends of Belle Grove Plantation website.

Fort Jefferson

Click to enlarge - very cool photo.

This is a coastal fortress on the Florida Keys, and the "largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere" (16 million bricks).

Note the walls are surrounded by a moat!

Good summary at Wiki, with more details and many more pix at this link.

This is not the house from "Up"

It looks like the same situation, but the outcome in this case was not as happy for the owner, who reportedly kept holding out for more and more money until the real estate bubble burst, and now no one wants to buy the house.

Full story at the StarTribune.

Windsor Shades - an interesting house

1935. King William County, Virginia. "Waterville, vicinity of Sweet Hall." Built by Tidewater planter James Ruffin in 1794 on the Pamunkey River, this home served as a tavern for Ruffin's Ferry. Currently known as Windsor Shades.

I was intrigued by the unusual architecture at the ends of this house (view the wallpaper image at the Shorpy discussion), especially the brickwork of the immense chimneys.  With a quick Google I found the following history of the building:

The one-time tavern, which witnessed a hustle and bustle of travelers ferrying to and from New Kent County, boasts more George Washington encounters than a dozen other houses could even dream of.

"This likely was a stop for Washington on his way to the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg," Fischer noted. "First the tavern and then the ferry."

In fact, Fischer said he has proof of 25 documented visits by Washington to the area, and there were likely more.

Fischer said Windsor Shades was probably built about 1745... Providing a tour of the house, Fischer noted the ship's ballast stones used in the basement's walls, the tavern room with one of the largest fireplaces in Virginia, and cases in an upstairs hallway containing hundreds of Indian and Colonial artifacts found on the property, from tribal ceremonial pipes to English ceramics...

There's more info at the King William County website -

The dwelling is a story and a half, five bay, gambrel roofed structure built of frame, covered with beaded weatherboards and set on a low, English-bond brick basement. The feature for which the house is renowned is the massive Flemish bond brick chimney stacks at either end. The east chimneys consist of double stacks with three sets of tiled weatherings on each and with a two-story pent between them.

- where there is also a photo of Windsor Shades as it looks now:

Secret passageways for your home

Pictured above is an offering from the Creative Home Engineering company.  Other doors hidden in bookshelves are depicted at Hide A Door, and other relevant links are assembled at Spot Cool Stuff.

Sunset at Meteora

I've previously posted about Meteora and its access.  This photo is a better demonstration of why the location was chosen.  Imagine sitting there to watch the sunset.  Or a storm passing by.  Fantastic.

Click for bigger.  Photo credit thrshr.

Very cool house

Click to enlarge photo. Original source of photo (and location of house) unknown.

Reposted from August 2009 with this addendum:  Continuing the tradition that someone visiting this board will have an answer to every question I pose, "anonymous" has offered not only an identification, but reports that he has slept in the house!

This is the gatehouse ("grindstugan") for Tjolöholm Castle in Sweden.  Photos of the front of the house here and here.  I think the design would look great overlooking a lake in northern Minnesota.

Bannerman Castle

Bannerman Castle is one of very few actual castles in the United States.  Located on Pollapel Island in the Hudson River north of New York, it was built a century ago and eventually used as a military suplus warehouse.  It is now abandoned and deteriorating.

Pix via Artificial Owl.

Famous house in Minneapolis

Home to a (fictional) television character in the 1970s.

Answer.

Posted by Gary J in Shorpy discussion thread.

Green building

Not an "earth after humans" photo, this appears to be just exuberant gardening on a bank building in Barcelona in 1980.

Credit to jmtp, via.

Fallingwater

"Hailed by Time magazine shortly after its completion as Wright's "most beautiful job," it is also listed among Smithsonian magazine's Life List of 28 places "to visit before ...it's too late." It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. In 1991, members of the American Institute of Architects named the house the "best all-time work of American architecture" and in 2007, it was ranked twenty-ninth on the list of America's Favorite Architecture according to the AIA."

Fallingwater has also been called RisingMildew by some wags, and it has developed some structural problems, perhaps not unexpectedly for a home built in the 1930s. The video above is done with computer graphics; it's a bit fast and "zoomy," but still interesting. Another interesting video rendition is the walkthrough done with a Half Life engine.

Stephen King's home in Bangor

Found at Pixdaus.

Average floor space of new homes

According to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the floor area of newly built homes in the U.K. averages 76 square meters - the smallest in Europe.

An interesting housing development

The pix above are from a set of 15. The location is not identified, but Babelfish yields a title for the piece as "City of the sun," and I found these comments in the discussion thread:

Latvian millionaire realized in the environments of the city Of [tsesis] of Latvia fantastic project.

After redeeming 3000 GA of forest in the hilly ground, it constructed “the city of the sun”, where special rules act and people conduct entirely different order of life.

First, three-storied houses from the ecologically clean materials are built thus taking into account area relief, that from the windows of each separate house are not visible other houses.

In the second place, near each of 300 houses is a small lake and a forest, which enter into the cost of section (from 0,4 to 1,3 GA each).

Thirdly, all houses are equipped with the central canalization (laid special-technology under the roots of pine trees and fir trees!), by the high-speed Internet, by electric power, and in each house there is a geothermal heat pump with the bore hole of 90-100[m], which converts energy of the earth into the heat-energy. Of this heat-energy it is the year round sufficient for the heating of house and preheating of hot water.

The houses obviously can be seen from other houses, so there may be other inaccuracies in the comment. But I wonder if this is a Latvian development. I'm impressed.

Update: It is Latvia. Photo credit and more info here.

Dutch homes (Giethoorn)

From a set of 20 photos at Fishki.net.

Beautiful. I wonder whether that "organic" Hobbit-like look to the roof reflects thatching, or some modern material that's crafted to look like thatch.

Church converted to a private home

Several months ago I wrote about a San Francisco church that had been repurposed into a home. This one, in Northumberland, England is even better; the woodwork, stonework, and colors blend with the architecture to make a really awesome impression. As a Minnesotan I can't help but shudder at the thought of the winter heating bill, but I'll still file this in the "impressive" category.

More pictures of other parts of the home here. Via.

Where can you find hotel rooms for $20/night?

Perhaps in Zimbabwe - I don't know - but also in... Las Vegas. An article at the Guardian today describes the city's extreme bad fortune in building a new multi-billion dollar CityCenter complex just as the national economy is collapsing.

After a quarter of a century of phenomenal growth, Las Vegas has come to a shuddering halt. The seemingly endless supply of gamblers has dried up. So has the conference trade, hardly helped by a warning from President Barack Obama that bailed-out Wall Street banks should avoid "taking junkets to Las Vegas" on the taxpayers' dime.

Always good value, Vegas hotels have had to slash their room rates by 30% to fill beds. Downtown casinos are offering rates of barely $20 a night, while the four-star Las Vegas Hilton, where Barry Manilow is a resident performer, is offering rooms for as little as $39.

At those rates, you could win enough each day at the video poker machines to live in Las Vegas for free...