Design Guidelines for the West Chester Historic District, Borough of West Chester, Pennsylvania

B. West Chester Architecture

The historic character of West Chester is reflected in its historic buildings. West Chester’s political status and social character largely accounts for its buildings. As a county seat, and seat of a prosperous and increasingly populous region, modest wealth has been available for building. And proximity to Philadelphia, which until some decades into the nineteenth century was the largest and most cultivated city in America, meant that both architectural styles and architectural talent were available.

The town’s architectural heritage is noteworthy, and many high-style as well as vernacular examples of American architectural styles from various periods can be found in buildings that are still in use within the Historic District. A structure considered high-style will exhibit the distinctive and significant features of an architectural style and is typically a public or religious building. A vernacular example may exhibit only a few of a style’s characteristics and is more typically a domestic structure. As examples of vernacular architecture, it is also important to note that the stylistic features found on a building in West Chester might reflect several stylistic periods rather than one specific period. Many of West Chester’s buildings reflect the evolution vernacular buildings often experience over time. As space requirements and usage needs changed, buildings were adapted. Furthermore, older buildings were updated stylistically in order to stay in vogue and to project an image of prosperity. A small Federal building may gain an addition of two more bays as more space was needed; then later, the same building might have been updated by the addition of Victorian Revival architectural elements such as a porch or a steeply pitched centered gable.

The Federal Style (nationally 1780-1820, vernacular examples to mid-century)
The Federal style became extremely popular after the American Revolution, and the style is found in abundance in West Chester. In West Chester, Federal style buildings are brick, frequently laid in Flemish bond—i.e., with alternate bricks laid lengthwise and endwise (“stretchers” and “headers”). Federal buildings are relatively plain, rectilinear and box-like. They are generally oriented laterally to the street, and there are apt to be dormers in the roof. Windows, aligned vertically and horizontally, are double-hung, and were originally glazed with six-over-six panes. Many windows are simply flush with the wall without any decorative lintel, or when present, lintels are simple, usually constructed with a keystone or a segmental arch. The windows were originally all shuttered with solid shutters on the first floor and louvers on upper stories. Cornices typically have a modest projection, and chimneys most commonly are found at gable ends. The principal ornamentation usually is lavished on the doorway. A high-style Federal doorway is flanked by slender columns or pilasters and may have a small porch supported by simple columns. Over the door is apt to be a transom light, either a semi-elliptical fanlight or, more often, a rectangle; and there may be a full entablature above.

One of the half-dozen eighteenth-century Federal style buildings in West Chester is 15 North High Street, located between the temple-form banks across from the Courthouse (Figure 12). The 5-bay building was constructed in two phases, 1789 and 1792. Downtown West Chester exhibits numerous Federal buildings. An example is the “Lincoln Biography Building” of 1833, 28 West Market Street, so called because in 1860 the first biography of Lincoln, campaign propaganda, was printed there. The Lincoln building has three and a half stories with dormers, and the usual Federal cornice and dentiled bed molding. Another example is 101 South High Street, the Judge Thomas Bell residence, built in 1829 (Figure 13).

Romantic Revivals and the Victorian Era
Until after the Revolution, a single architectural style influenced the design of the majority of structures in the United States. With the formation of a new Republic, numerous styles became popular starting in the first quarter of the nineteenth century and continuing into the first quarter of the twentieth century. Represented in West Chester architecture, these styles, including the Greek Revival, Gothic and Romanesque Revivals, the Italianate, Queen Anne, Second Empire, and the Renaissance Revival, looked to historical European precedents for their design characteristics. With the exception of the Greek Revival, designers such as Andrew Jackson Downing in his 1842 book Cottage Residences, looked at medieval prototypes for the forms of the high-style romantic revival structures. Stylistic features tended to be mixed and matched, sometimes making a clear definition of a building style difficult. For example the impressive 1854 Samuel Sloan designed house at the northeast corner of Church and Miner Streets would be considered predominately Italianate because of its large, bracketed cornice, although less formal stylized sunflowers adorn the frieze. The marble entrance, however, is formal Greek. Its fine ironwork, similar to many others in West Chester, is generally considered Victorian in style.

Greek Revival (nationally 1818 to 1860)
Beginning in 1818, with the Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia, the Greek Revival style came into vogue. Modeled after the ancient Greek public buildings, the distinguishing features of a high-style, American, Greek Revival building include a pedimented gable front with a low pitched roof, large two-story columns creating a portico, decorative pilasters, bold simple moldings, unadorned friezes, and horizontal transom windows above doors.

West Chester’s examples of high-style, Greek Revival structures are both numerous and notable, as many were designed by nationally recognized architects. Although now demolished, the Mansion House Hotel, located at the corner of Church and Market Streets, was designed by William Strickland, the architect of the famous Second Bank. Strickland was the first of a series of celebrated architects to work in West Chester. Thomas U. Walter, Strickland’s protege, was destined to become the most noted architect of his generation, designing the dome and wings of the Capitol in Washington. Here in West Chester, Walter created half-a-dozen buildings, four of which are today among the borough’s finest structures. The 1832 Greek Revival design for First Presbyterian Church (southwest corner of Darlington and Miner) was his first major commission here. The First Presbyterian Church is the earliest surviving specimen in the United States of an “in antis” facade (the deeply recessed entranceway supported by columns); two great unfluted Ionic columns rise between the “wings” of the portico. The whole design is remarkable for its elegant simplicity and lack of ornamentation, enhanced by the white stucco (cheaper than Grecian marble!) that contrasted with the red brick neighborhood around it. The doorway is conspicuously battered—i.e., with sides sloping in toward the top. That monumental feature is an Egyptian design element. There is no full-scale Egyptian Revival building in West Chester, but this battered doorway anticipates the fully Egyptian style of Walter’s 1835 Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia.

In 1836, Walter designed the First Bank of Chester County, across from the courthouse on High Street (See Figure 4). Here he used the Doric order, and the building, despite an alteration to the steps so that they cut into the podium, is a supremely successful instance of Greek Revival architecture. (The handsome bronze doors are set into another battered doorway.) Ten years later Walter designed the county courthouse, this time using the more ornate Corinthian order for the six cast- iron columns of the portico. The courthouse features a church-like tower rising behind that Grecian portico, a fusion of classical and medieval architecture invented early in the eighteenth century by James Gibbs for St. Martin in the Fields, London. Walter beautifully employed all three of the Greek orders—Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—in porticos or facades in West Chester buildings.

It is, of course, in public edifices like churches and government buildings that the Greek Revival style is most impressive. The continuing appeal of this classicism is evidenced by the Neoclassical Revival structure at the First National Bank, also across from the courthouse, constructed in 1912 and employing the Roman form of the Ionic order.

Numerous domestic buildings in West Chester also feature Greek and Roman characteristics. In Greek Revival vernacular structures, the following might be present: a gable-front structure, a two-story pedimented portico, a one-story flat-roof porch supported by prominent columns, a doorway with a rectangular transom window, a heavy cornice with wide bands of trim, and applied pilasters.

Gothic and Romanesque Revival
(nationally 1800-1880, locally to 1925)
Competing with the classical Greek Revival were the medieval revivals, Romanesque and Gothic. Historically, of course, the round-arched Romanesque style preceded pointed-arch Gothic. But as revival styles in the United States, Gothic began about 1800, Romanesque about 1840. There is no thoroughly Romanesque building in West Chester, but the 1848 serpentine building designed by Thomas U. Walter for the Horticultural Society, now part of the Chester County Historical Society, has a fine round-arched entrance which is exemplary of the Romanesque Revival style (Figure 14).

The Gothic Revival appeared with especial vigor in religious structures. Consider these four Gothic churches in West Chester: the Episcopal (High and Union); the church at Church and Barnard; the Methodist (High and Union); and the Catholic (Gay and New). All exhibit the hallmark of the Gothic style—pointed arches—but they also have characteristics that can distinguish them within several of the subgroups of the Gothic style. The 1868 sanctuary of Holy Trinity, Episcopal, was constructed with serpentine to a design of its pastor. It is a fine example of Early English Gothic, with the typical narrow lancet windows, triple on the front, paired on the sides. In 1882, the parish house, designed by West Chester’s own architect, T. Roney Williamson, was erected to the north. While the sanctuary is a perfect example of the early phase of the Gothic Revival, the parish house is unabashedly High Gothic, with contrasting materials (red brick, green stone), an ogee arch over the door, and stepped gable, all quite picturesque and in contrast with the calm uniformity of the sanctuary.

The West Chester Community Fellowship Church (originally Westminster Presbyterian Church), on the southwest corner of Church and Barnard, dates from 1899 and is remarkable for its very picturesque adaptation of Early English Gothic with its rusticated stone, a tower with finials and angel waterspouts, and elaborate asymmetry. Twenty years later, the Methodist church was constructed on High Street, a simpler design with shallow transepts and a square tower at center front; the window tracery is of the Decorated style (the style of the English Gothic dating from 1280-1380).

Latest of these Gothic churches is St. Agnes Catholic Church. Completed in 1926, the building is again English Gothic. The nave and chancel are short, the shallow transepts long (and used, inside, as part of the nave). Their length allows very large windows that, like the “west” window (actually south-facing), have stained glass set in coarse tracery probably intended to be Perpendicular or Late English Gothic style (c.1377-1547) but more resembling the Decorated style. The massive wooden roof within is supported on impressive hammerbeam trusses.

Gothic Revival was also used in domestic buildings, though there are few examples, even of Gothic detail, in West Chester. But there is a good 1873 example of domestic Gothic architecture at 311 South Church Street, a serpentine house with the steep gables, pointed-arch windows, and decorative bargeboards typical of the style (Figure 15).

The Italianate Style (nationally 1837-1875)
The “Italian villa” or Italianate style entered American architecture in about 1837. A high-style Italianate structure is typically composed of rectilinear blocks, usually symmetrical in themselves but clustered asymmetrically. The picturesque effect may be enhanced by a (usually square) tower placed off-center, or by a cupola. Some windows may be round-headed. Wide overhanging eaves are supported by conspicuous brackets; and in a fully developed Italianate there is a veranda or loggia on at least one side.

While there are no examples of high-style Italianate structures in West Chester’s Historic District, there are numerous examples of Italianate buildings. Although the basic form—a gabled roof, rectilinear, brick structure with aligned rectangular windows—may share similarities with earlier Federal buildings, these vernacular structures have Italianate details such as broad eaves supported by brackets, decorative window lintels, or bracketed window crowns. Many have front porches, and, if situated on corners or with side-yards, have verandas as well. The Italianate style was frequently used for commercial buildings, often blended with Federal style elements (Figure 16).

The Queen Anne Style
“Queen Anne” is actually a misnomer. The style was an eclectic “revival”, more accurately an invention, in England by Richard Norman Shaw in 1868; it was really inspired by the large country mansions of the sixteenth century, not the classicizing eighteenth century houses of Queen Anne’s reign. After the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876, Queen Anne became one of the dominant styles of American domestic architecture despite that classicists denounced it, deploring its “emancipation from all restraints,” and “disestablishment of all standards.” The Queen Anne structure aims at picturesque effects and contrasts. Typically, Queen Anne buildings feature an elaborately irregular plan, intricate elevation, tower, turrets, combinations of gable and hip roofs and decorative chimneys. They display a surprising variety of materials, with stone, brick, shingle, siding, tile, often all in one building, and can sometimes exhibit an equal variety of colors.

Examples in the Historic District include a residence at 120 South Church (Figure 17) and the First West Chester Fire Company at 14 North Church Street (Figure 18). Splendid examples are to be found on North Church Street, beyond the Historic District.

Second Empire Style
“Second Empire” is named after the French Empire of Napoleon III (1852-70); the concurrent Parisian style with its distinctive mansart roof arrived in America in 1859. Philadelphia’s City Hall, begun in 1874, is the largest Second-Empire building in the States. Even before that, however, the style arrived in West Chester. The style was utilized in both detached dwellings and row houses (Figure 19) on both the south and north sides of the borough; the finest examples are on West Virginia Avenue.

Renaissance Revival
The last half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries witnessed a plethora of architectural styles beyond those already discussed, but these styles are less abundantly represented in West Chester. The Renaissance Revival is manifested here in the fine Courthouse Annex of 1893, another work in still another style by West Chester architect T. Roney Williamson (Figure 20). For imposing effect, the second and third stories are integrated externally and set on the first as a base; a very large cornice crowns the facade with a Chateauesque roof rising above it. Italian workmen dressed the limestone; Italian marble is used within; and the impressive second-floor courtroom is itself Renaissance Revival, with oak paneling and coffered ceiling.

There are a few Renaissance Revival houses, perhaps better called “French Academic,” since their antecedents are French rather than Italian. One such house can be seen at 106 South High Street. This 1874 house has windows with segmental tops and corniced hoods, an ample roof cornice (the brackets are missing), a marble basement story, and a very fine door. The double house next door (110-112) is similar and retains its shutters.

Beaux Arts
Two examples of Beaux Arts buildings, a style named after the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, are found in the West Chester Historic District. The first, the 1905 Chester County Trust Company on East Gay Street is a small example of Beaux-Arts (Figure 21). The boldness of the rusticated joints, and the use of arches in conjunction with the classical orders, are among the characteristics of the style. Arches distinguish this Beaux-Arts building from Greek Revival, which like original Grecian architecture never employed arches.

Two years later, the Farmers and Mechanics Building rose at the southwest corner of High and Market Streets. Its six stories on a steel skeleton make it in principle a true skyscraper. This, too, is a Beaux-Arts design, with a clear differentiation of the podium or base story, the upward sweep of the four central stories with their oriel bays, and the triforium top story with emphatic cornice.

Art Deco
In the later 1920’s, the style known as “Art Deco” (after the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts) reached the United States, appearing in everything from jewelry to skyscrapers. Art Deco is once again fashionable, and Art Deco buildings that have survived the wrecker’s ball are treasured. The half-block long complex on the west side of High north of Gay Street, comprising one-story shops and the former Warner Theater (now the office of The Philadelphia Inquirer) represents this style, with the geometric patterning and the long sleek lines of decorative moldings around the theater. There are some decorative touches of the style on the Greentree Building (1931) at the northeast corner of High and Gay Streets.

Later Pre-Modern Buildings
The Colonial Revival style, perhaps the most ubiquitous American architectural style of the twentieth century, is represented in West Chester in the form of the bank buildings at the southeast and northeast corners of Market and High Streets, and the Old YMCA Building, now the Chester County Historical Society.

Another less clearly definable style is described as Twentieth Century Commercial, and is represented by the Woolworth’s Store at Gay and High Streets, now Iron Hill Brewery (Figure 22). The style features large metal-and-glass storefront windows and wide office windows above.

While the uniformity of building forms and materials contributes to the visual cohesiveness of the Historic District, the variety and richness of architectural styles creates a sense of the passage of time. The passage of time is reflected in the changing architectural styles from building to building, as well as modifications and additions to individual buildings over the generations.