An Elegant Dutch Colonial

By Harold T. Wolff, Ridge Historical Society

 In many ways, a Dutch Colonial house would seem to be almost ideal for a northern climate, with its upper story under a gambrel roof (the roof type we usually associate with barns), whose steep sides direct any rain or snowfall downward at once. Yet, after the appearance of the original colonial and post-revolutionary models in New York and New Jersey in the period 1625-1840, the style was not revisited until the 1890's.

In the late nineteenth century, Dutch ancestry had a certain cachet due to association with the leaders of society in that era, among whom may be mentioned the Rensselaers, the Stuyvesants, and of course the Roosevelts. Dutch Colonial houses also made their appearance on the Ridge, and among the most elegant is the Lisle W. Kerney House at 10030 S. Longwood Dr., erected in 1908 and 1909 for the secretary and treasurer of a firm that supplied asbestos products.

The architect of the Kerney House was Francis M. Barton (1878-1935), who was born in Chicago. His family specialized in plastering and interior decoration, and Francis was trained by his uncle Frank Bartolomei, who was not only a well-known church decorator, but also the inventor of an early vending machine. Francis, who began his architectural career with the design of houses, a number of them in Beverly/Morgan Park, was also an inventor, and developed the Barton Spider Web System for transferring loads from floors to columns in reinforced concrete buildings. (In 1921, Barton would give up the practice of architecture to devote himself full time to the design and manufacture of parts for the reinforced concrete system.)

The earliest of the Dutch Colonial revival houses had front-facing gambrel roofs, as if the house had been turned with its side to the street; sometimes there was a cross-wing also carrying a gambrel. The Kerney House has side gambrels, and the lower slope of the two-part roof has an elegant curve down to the cornice. Over the main entrance, in place of a frontal gambrel, is an elaborate pedimented dormer with a set of windows, one under a Palladian arch. The classical theme of this dormer is elaborated with pilasters between the windows and by a keystone in the wooden arch. The pedimented dormer is flanked by shed dormers with windows. Various details of the second story, which is of wood, are highlighted in red paint to emphasize the connection with the brick story beneath. The front of the first story, which is of red brick atop concrete walls painted red, consists mostly of a vast screened porch, the screened openings actually wrapping around to either side of the house. The principal entrance is centered. An elegant chimney of brick is centered in the south wall of the house, with two charming small windows cut through it one above the other at the second story level. The line of the cornice is carried around the sides by box gutters. The rear of the house has box and shed dormers at the second floor level and a three-sided bay connected to the rear vestibule. Barton has given the Kerney House its elegance through the use of the elegant curved slope of the roof and by projecting the classical pedimented dormer from it. The house thus becomes a fusion of the Dutch Colonial house form with the Palladian villas which were the models for the Georgian style.