Architectural Study

Italianate Architecture

Reading the design of the Timothy Skinner House within a style that shaped American homes and villages in the middle decades of the nineteenth century.

Style: Italianate Significance: Architecture Period: 1850-1874 Significant Year: 1865 Listed: 1991

Modern exterior photograph of the brick Timothy Skinner House, showing its porch, tall windows and bracketed cornice — Modern documentary photograph of the Timothy Skinner House. The National Park Service identifies the property as an Italianate building significant for architecture.

An Italianate House in Mexico

The Timothy Skinner House is recognized in the National Register of Historic Places as an Italianate residence. The style was widely used for American houses during the period in which the Skinner home was constructed.

Its visible character is carried by the brick walls, tall vertical openings, low roofline, projecting eaves with decorative brackets and porch forms that soften the substantial masonry residence.

Read the National Register document

Italianate architecture translated an idealized image of the Italian countryside villa into American towns, farms and cities. Popularized through nineteenth-century architectural pattern books, the style became especially common from the 1850s through the 1870s. It could be grand or comparatively restrained, but its most recognizable signature was the combination of vertical windows and a strong, bracketed roofline.

The Italianate Vocabulary

Characteristics identified in architectural field guides, read alongside surviving exterior views of the Skinner residence.

Feature 01

Bracketed Cornice

Decorative brackets beneath the roof overhang are the defining Italianate flourish. At the Skinner House, the strong bracketed eave line gives the brick block its distinctive historic profile.

Feature 02

Wide Eaves

Italianate houses commonly use a shallow roof with projecting eaves. The roof becomes less visually dominant while its underside and brackets form an ornamental crown.

Feature 03

Tall Windows

Tall, narrow window proportions lend a vertical emphasis to the facade. This quality remains visible in photographs of the Skinner House elevations.

Feature 04

Porch and Entry

Single-story porches or porticoes are common in the style. They provide an arrival space while allowing columns, trim and bracket work to enrich the facade.

Feature 05

Brick Construction

Italianate design adapted readily to wood, stone or brick. Here, masonry gives the home permanence, while lighter porch and cornice detailing provide contrast.

Feature 06

Restrained Villa Form

Not every Italianate home included a tower or cupola. The Skinner House presents the style through its massing, eaves, openings and porches rather than a dominant tower.

Reading the Skinner House

Recent exterior photographs preserve useful evidence of the building's visible architectural character.

Front exterior view of the Timothy Skinner House showing brick walls and porch — **Front Composition**The masonry main block and one-story porch give the residence both weight and domestic scale.

Angled exterior view of the Timothy Skinner House showing roofline and window proportions — **Roofline and Openings**An angled view emphasizes the projecting cornice area and the vertical rhythm of the windows.

Recent exterior listing photograph of the Timothy Skinner House and its porch — **Later Residential Era**Contemporary documentation allows the surviving exterior features to be recorded before future stewardship work begins.

What Makes It Italianate

The house is not identified by a single ornament alone. Its style is expressed through a coordinated composition: a tall two-story masonry body, elongated openings, overhanging bracketed eaves and one-story porch elements. Together these features place it within the domestic Italianate tradition recognized by the National Register.

What Makes It Local

Rather than a dramatic towered villa, the Skinner House is a practical, substantial Central New York residence. Its Italianate detailing expresses nineteenth-century fashion and status while remaining suited to a village household and regional materials.

Comparative Italianate Examples

Other documented American examples demonstrate the range of the style, from early villas to New York residences of roughly the Skinner House era.

Farnam Mansion in Oneida, New York, an Italianate residence built in 1862

Boardman-Mitchell House on Staten Island, New York, a documented Italianate house

Blandwood Mansion and Gardens in Greensboro, North Carolina, an early Italianate villa

Documenting the House Going Forward

As the house begins a new family chapter, its architecture can be documented more fully than public photographs allow. A careful photographic survey after move-in would create a baseline record of surviving Italianate features, later alterations and details that deserve preservation.

Particular attention should be given to original or early exterior trim, masonry, windows and porch components, as well as surviving interior craftsmanship that may connect the residence to its nineteenth-century period of significance.

Photograph each exterior elevation square-on and at angles.
Capture brackets, cornice details, masonry and porch trim closely.
Document windows, doors, hardware, staircase, moldings and mantels.
Note evidence of Legion-era changes or duplex conversion.
Preserve before-and-after images of future repair work.