United States or Bouvet Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As indicated by an accompanying illustration showing the typical treatment of a second-floor twelve-paned window at Number 6105 Germantown Avenue, Germantown, most blinds were strengthened by a lock rail about midway of the height, or slightly below, dividing the blind into an upper and lower section.
An interesting fenestration scheme, with paneled shutters at the lower windows only, is enhanced by the pleasing scale of twelve-paned upper and lower window sashes having broad white muntins throughout. Opening the front door, one finds himself in a wide hall with doorways giving entrance to large front rooms on each side. Beyond, a beautifully detailed arch supported by pilasters spans the hall.
The Old Swedes' Church has a few rectangular windows with fifteen-and sixteen-paned upper and lower sashes, while over the front entrance there is a window having a twelve-paned upper and a sixteen-paned lower sash. In Christ Church are to be seen two windows having ten-paned upper and fifteen-paned lower sashes set in a recessed round brick arch.
The high recessed doorway, with its broad marble lower step in the brick sidewalk, is located so that there are three windows to the left and only two to the right. An interesting feature of the fenestration is the use of wide twelve-paned windows on the first story and of narrower and higher eighteen-paned windows on the second. Again there are shutters on the lower story and blinds above.
Among the more pretentious countryseats and city residences having twelve-paned upper and lower sashes on both the first and second stories may be mentioned Cliveden, Stenton, Loudoun, Woodford, Whitby Hall, the Morris house, the Perot-Morris house, Chalkley Hall and Port Royal House in Frankford.
In Congress Hall and Carpenters' Hall there are also round-topped windows with twelve-paned lower sashes and upper sashes having ten small ornamental panes to make up the semicircle above twelve rectangular panes. A few similar windows with seven ornamental panes in the round top are to be seen in Christ Church.
Laurel Hill, in the Northern Liberties, Fairmount Park, has twelve-paned upper and lower sashes on the first story and eight-paned upper and lower sashes on the second story, whereas the Billmeyer house has all twelve-paned sashes except the lower ones on the second story, which are eight-paned.
Six, nine and twelve-paned sashes forming twelve, eighteen and twenty-four paned windows were all common throughout the Colonial period. Twelve-paned sashes were used chiefly in public buildings and the larger private mansions, six-paned sashes in houses of moderate size.
Twelve-paned sashes were also used in various ways in combination with six, eight and nine paned sashes. For example, the Waln house, Number 254 South Second Street, has twelve-paned upper and lower sashes on the first story with six-paned upper and lower sashes on the second story, whereas Mount Pleasant has the reverse arrangement.
Wyck, consisting as it does of two buildings joined together, probably has the most heterogeneous fenestration of any house in Philadelphia. On the first floor are windows having nine-paned lower and six-paned upper sashes, while on the second story are windows having twelve-paned lower and eight-paned upper sashes and others having six-paned upper and lower sashes.
Word Of The Day