From the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, prepared in 2000 by Leslie Giles, Architectural Historian, Lexington, Virginia:
Architectural Analysis
Otterburn stands out in the context of Bedford County and the Commonwealth as an unusually refined example of a transitional antebellum period design, featuring an Early Classical Revival form and plan, and an imaginative Greek Revival rebuilding. While local tradition long held that the house dated to about 1837 (a date contemporaneous with that of several other significant Greek Revival buildings in the area), new research indicates that the building was originally constructed by 1828 and was rebuilt in 1841-1843 following a major fire.
The domestic architectural landscape of antebellum Bedford county was characterized by wide variations in housing, which ranged from diminutive one- and two-room log or frame cabins to expansive brick plantation seats, including a handful of sophisticated architectural essays such as Thomas Jefferson's octagonal retreat at Poplar Forest. As in other parts of Virginia's Piedmont region, certain agricultural enterprises -- especially the raising of tobacco -- brought great wealth to the small segment of the rural population that owned large acreages and slave labor forces in the decades preceding the Civil War. To express their financial success and perhaps enhance their prestige, many antebellum-era plantation owners built fine two-story brick or frame houses that incorporated formal center-passage plans, were either one or two rooms deep, and often featured refined ornamental woodwork and plasterwork derived from published pattern book sources. In Bedford County, an early precedent for such domestic sophistication was Benjamin Donald's father's home, Fancy Farm, arguably "one of the finest Late Georgian houses in Virginia," according to the National Register nomination for the property. Built in the 1790s, Fancy Farm is a "gracefully proportioned" two-story double-pile brick dwelling with pedimented gable ends, a slight projection centered on each facade, and exterior and interior woodwork employing forms and detailing copied from classical sources as published in architectural pattern books of the period, including William Pain's Practical Builder. Fancy Farm, and the classical tradition to which it relates, undoubtedly influenced the design of Benjamin Donald's Otterburn, which also incorporates pedimented gable ends, a slightly projecting central section, and woodwork derived from pattern books. (8)
A select group of Piedmont plantation houses dating to the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries also employed grand pedimented facades. More commonly used for public buildings such as courthouses and churches, the classical pediment was adopted for residential construction largely through the influence of sophisticated designers such as Thomas Jefferson. Palladian tripartite schemes in particular favored the use of a pedimented temple front; Old Rectory, The Cedars, and Old West House in Bedford County were among the Palladian tripartite houses that fell into this category. Woodbourne, eventually assuming a tripartite form via two additions, acquired a stuccoed classical pediment during the circa 1810 construciton of its subtly projecting two-story pavilion. Otterburn's three-bay facade (set behind a five-bay porch), while not the typical Jeffersonian/Palladian tripartite form, reflects a room arrangement -- including a T-shaped plan with an unusual transverse hall -- closely associated with the Pallaidian tripartite form. The house's original 1828 design, pre-dating the 1841 fire, may have more closely resembled the typical tripartite house. (9)
Otterburn, with four stuccoed pediments -- one centered on each facade -- reflects Jefferson's influence as seen elsewhere in the Piedmont region. Otterburn's front facade pediment is unusual, though, in that it rises above the three central bays of a full-length, five-bay recessed porch. The porch, as originally built in 1841-1843, was further distinguished by the use of paired, unfluted Doric columns along its length at the piano nobile level and corresponding rectangular brick piers at ground level. Throughout antebellum Virginia, paired columns were typically used only to support single-bay entry porticos, while unpaired columns were employed for multi-bay porches. Otterburn's paired column porch design is therefore distinctive and rare.
Additionally, Otterburn incorporates certain features that further distinguish it from the preferred regional idioms. Foremost among these is the adoption of the piano nobile form, which places secondary spaces on the ground level and the principal entry and public places on an upper floor. This form effectively produces the appearance of a one-story building, in keeping with the European fashion for "elegant, one-story pavilions, the emphasis being on comfort and privacy rather than magnificence." The piano nobile also happens to be well-suited to the Southern climate, offering the house's principal rooms the opportunity to capture any available breezes, while providing the ground floor with space, light, and ventilation not typically obtained in a basement. The form was more commonly used in coastal sections of the Deep South than it was in Virginia during the antebellum period. Otterburn's recessed front and rear porches (or verandas) are also unusual for the region, and are probably derived from Deep South or Caribbean sources. Few non-coastal examples of recessed full-length verandas appear this far north, with the exception of Monterey, built in 1846 in adjoining Roanoke County; and examples of cottages and cottage rows at springs resorts such as Sweet Chalybeate and Yellow Sulfur). Otterburn's design also employs large tripartite, triple-hung sash on the front and rear elevations that were both stylish -- tripartite windows were regularly used for fine Federal houses, and Thomas Jefferson used triple-hung sash at Poplar Forest and Monticello -- and functional, another concession to the Piedmont's warm summer temperatures. (10)
Another aspect of Otterburn that merits discussion in this analysis is the use of pattern book sources for the design of specific architectural details. As previously mentioned, pattern books were a ready source of inspiration for builders in the Virginia Piedmont and elsewhere as early as the eighteenth century. Asher Benjamin, one of the most prolific authors of pattern books during the early nineteenth century, was especially popular among the region's builders. The Practical House Carpenter, published in 1830, was a principal resource for the architectural detailing on many of Bedford County's finest buildings completed in the 1830s and 1840s, including Avenel, Three Otters, Thomas Chapel, and Bellevue. As previously described Otterburn also features exterior and interior architectural elements copied or derived from drawings illustrated in this volume. Undoubtedly, several local builders had access to the book, and their clients favored its use for its economically executed yet stylish Grecian ornaments. Otterburn also seems to have elements inspired by illustrations in another of Benjamin's popular books, Practice of Architecture, published in 1833. Completed by 1843, Otterburn is a relatively early domestic example of the fashionable Greek Revival style in the Virginia Piedmont; the style's greatest popularity was from the late 1840s through the 1850s. This complex house, with layers of classical Roman, Greek, Palladian, and Jeffersonian features, manages to convey in its somewhat altered form the rich palette of influences available to the sophisticated builders and owners of the antebellum era. (11)
Notes:
(8) DHR file numbers 009-0007.
(9) DHR file numbers 009-0033, 009-0027, 015-0003, 117-0006, 009-0056; HABS Inventory sites "The Cedars," "Old West House," "Woodbourne," and "Otterburn."
(10) Nichols 1960:6; DHR file numbers 128-0035, 003-0007, 060-0013.
(11) DHR file numbers 141-0001, 009-0031, 009-0178, 009-0003; Benjamin 1830; Benjamin 1833.
Tripartite Window in Parlor.
Medallion in Parlor.
Medallion in Main Hall.
Front door.
