Melrose Spotlight: the Stick building style

In the late 19^th century, architects in Melrose finally abandoned any pretense to simplicity, symmetry, and balance and began creating house styles that worked to overwhelm the senses through dramatic use of unexpected combinations of structural features and surface decorations.

The first of these was the Stick style. Stick began as a response to the new building technologies involved in balloon framing that we discussed in our last post, as the exterior features, known as “stick work,” reference the house’s internal structure. Stick houses often show off elaborate wooden aprons under the eaves. Roofs tend to be steep gables set off with decorative towers ending in elongated spindles.

A dramatic example is 51 Bellevue Avenue. Note the steep cross gables with their delicate aprons. Dormers are likewise steep, with varied surface decoration. The round tower on the left side of the house has an especially elongated roof, ending in a spindle. Note also the corner board trim, which are single pieces of wood extending a full two stories, referencing the balloon framing within.

A simpler, though no less interesting example is 248 East Foster Street. This house features one very steep, irregularly proportioned gable. Every angle of this house features stick trim, and the eves are festooned with a diamond and circle pattern. The porch braces are painted decoratively. The varied slopes, trims, and decorative patterns employed in this house takes what is a simple basic layout—it’s a rectangle—and turns it into an adventure in texture.

At 75 Elm Street, the characteristic corner board trim is missing, but it is still identifiably in the Stick style. It has an almost jarringly angular sensibility, quite elongated, with one’s eyes drawn to the extremely steep, square roof of its tower. The roof of the tower is itself decorated with tiny, angular, ornamental dormers. The unexpected verticality of its massing, unusual roof, and the play of the surface decoration make it unlike anything else in Melrose—which was, of course, exactly what its builder wanted.