Window Views #6

Coe Hall at Planting Fields Arboretum, New York (Long Island's Gold Coast)

Welcome to Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, Long Island’s premier public arboretum and historic site located in Oyster Bay, New York. A former Gold Coast estate, the arboretum is comprised of 409 acres of greenhouses, rolling lawns, formal gardens, woodland paths, and outstanding plant collections. The original historic estate buildings remain including the 65 room Tudor Revival mansion, Coe Hall, which is open for tours spring through fall. The grounds, landscaped by the Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Massachusetts, are spectacularly beautiful year round.

At Planting Fields, W.R. Coe was actively involved with developing and improving the collections of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, and hibiscus. Coe had a particular liking for new plant varieties and modern growing techniques. In this spirit, he deeded the estate to the State of New York in 1949.

Look carefully and you can see purple/pink rhododendrons through the window.

The two windows at the top overlook the entry hall of Coe Hall.

Mr. Linky is having trouble this week. Please leave a comment. And don't forget to visit other participants. :)

Window Views #5

Welcome again everyone, to WINDOW VIEWS.

The house below certainly shows off all sorts of windows and architectural styles. It's called in my neighborhood a McMANSION.

So let me tell you a little bit about McMansions.

McMansion is a term used to describe a particular type of housing that is constructed in an assembly line fashion reminiscent of food production at McDonald's fast food restaurants. The term is one of many McWords.

A McMansion often denotes a home with a larger footprint than a median home, an indistinct architectural style similar to others nearby, and is often located in a newer, larger subdivision. On a singular level, one can also replace an existing, smaller structure in an older neighborhood, often referred to as a teardown.

A McMansion is a house with a floor area commonly over 3,000 square feet in size, often on a small lot (the house itself often covering a larger portion of the land than the yard in a more conventional design) and typically built in homogeneous communities that are often produced by a developer.

Although they are generally large homes, they are mass produced and are not of the caliber of a mansion. Their cost places them in the purchasing range of the upper middle class segment of the population.

The large, numerous windows that are sometimes used in the great room can result in buildings that are much more expensive to cool and heat, especially if the house has been designed without consideration for its orientation relative to seasonal sun paths or without proper insulation. Large rooms, especially those with high ceilings, are frequently more expensive to heat.

There is good news though this article says the McMansion trend is slowing...



Hope you enjoyed this "Window Views" post. Don't forget to post your own and then come here and sign Mr. Linky and leave a comment. Then go visit other participants. We all like visitors, right?

Window Views #4

These windows in and around my neighborhood caught my eye so I photographed them and then tried to find out something about them.

A dormer is a structural element of a building that protrudes from the plane of a sloping roof surface. Dormers are used, either in original construction or as later additions, to create usable space in the roof of a building by adding headroom and usually also by enabling addition of windows.

Often conflated with the term 'dormer', a dormer window is a window set into the dormer. Like skylights, dormer windows are a source of light and ventilation for top floors, but unlike skylights (which are flush with the roof surface) they also increase the amount of headroom in the room and allow for more usable space.

The arched window structure in the center of three windows seems to have a square window pane behind. The decorative header of the dormer seems to have been originally created.

The double hung windows below the dormer face an open balcony.

Double semi-circular arched windows with rounded mouldings.

This window is from Flushing Town Hall which was and is an historically significant building, a NYC landmark, built in 1862.It's also on the National Register of Historic Places. It opened officially in 1864, the second year of the Civil War, and was designed in the early Romanesque Revival style of its time. The building was used, variously, as a mustering site for Union soldiers, a bank, jail, grand ballroom, a public assembly hall, a setting for light opera and traveling theatrical productions, and to house civic offices.



Hope you enjoyed the views of these windows. Don't forget to post your own and then come here and sign Mr. Linky and leave a comment. Then go visit other participants. We all like visitors, right?

~Check out my Blogger Friends Award at SEPIA SCENES~

Note on Window Views and Sepia Scenes

~I'm going to post WINDOW VIEWS and SEPIA SCENES at 6:00 AM EST on Wednesday (tomorrow) and leave each post up through Thursday. This makes it easier for our friends around the world to post and get the most out of the day.~

Feel free to post any time within that time frame and if you're late that's okay too.

Window Views #3

Welcome to our 3rd edition of WINDOW VIEWS.

Christian Science Center, Boston, MA

I visited the Christian Science Center last year. It was built in the American Neo-Classical Revival Style of architecture. It's an extraordinary building. I thought the windows were particularly beautiful but very elaborate.

Neo-Classical Revival Style

1893-1940

Features to Look For:

• Classical Greek and Roman architectural elements: columns, round arches, heavy entablatures, often with elaborate detail
• Symmetry in plans, use of wings or corner pavilions
• Used for governmental and civic buildings; common for banks, much less common for residences

America's interest in classical architecture was reborn in the 1890s. Hoosier civic leaders thought that classical architecture would symbolize authority and culture for their growing cities and towns at the turn of the century. The Neo-Classical Revival style is similar to the much earlier Greek Revival style; however, it differs by its use of elaborate classical detail, usually more permanent materials (brick, stone) and more massive scale. Architects frequently combined elements from Greek, Roman, and Italian Renaissance architecture into one design.

Government, civic institutions, and wealthy homeowners selected the style for public buildings, institutional structures, and larger residences.

If you want to play along with "Window Views" the only rules are:
Post your own photographs
Sign Mr. Linky
Leave a comment
Visit other participants

Visiting other participants is the nicest thing you can do. And then if you visit them, they'll visit you!

maryt/theteach