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| John C. Sikes House 1926-1927 - 1301 East Franklin Street (NR photo 1979) |
“The John C. Sikes House is an elegant essay in Neo-Classicism Designed in 1926 by Louis D. Sutherland, member of the distinguished Charlotte architectural firm of C.C. Hook, the Sikes House rivals Hook's White Oaks, the Duke Mansion, in suburban Myers Park. The two structures affirm both the consistency and the inventiveness of the Hook office.
“The Sikes House anchors a 3.89-acre site whose remaining paths and carriage drives repeat, at landscape scale, the curvilinearity of the Adamesque trim which adorns the house. The remnants, of picturesque landscaping also serve as a foil against which the geometric clarity of the elevational organization is strengthened. The grounds thus act not only as a buffer but as an integral feature of the design unit.
“The house is built of vertically-scored yellow Roman bricks laid in mechanical bond with deeply-raked joints. The house consists of two units: a two-and-a-half story main block, five bays wide and four deep; and a two-story rear ell, four bays long and three deep. Each block carries a shake-shingled gable roof. The full pediments of the lateral elevations are interrupted by partially engaged end chimneys. A modillion cornice underlines the gable. Beneath it runs a decorative frieze composed of headers resting on soldiers.
“Fenestration is treated consistently, level by level, throughout. Beginning at the roof, eight-light dormers, each with flat-paneled pilasters supporting a broken pediment, pierce the main block. On the second story are six-over-six sash, each surmounted by a flat-paneled stone lintel. Wooden shutters, bearing the cut-out silhouettes of urns, flank each second-story sash. On the ground floor are paired eight-light casements. Each stands above a flat-paneled wooden apron. Each double casement is crowned by a stone tympanum. From each tympanum an escutcheon projects in bas relief between foliate swags. Outlining these tympanum are brick archivolts with flat-paneled stone impost blocks and keystones. The central entrance receives a complementary treatment: an elliptically-arched fanlight surmounts French double doors; full-length sidelights flank the doors.
“The central entrance on the main (southwest) facade is dramatized by a parapeted portico. Its full entablature is supported by six stone Tuscan columns. The columns stand at the top of a short, broad flight of stone steps. A broad piazza runs the main facade and terminates in a parapeted side porch. A one-story sun porch balances the side porch at the opposite end of the facade. Neo-Classical stone planters ornament the piazza and tie the house to the extant garden furniture which, like the fluted birdbath and egg-and-dart trimmed stone bench, reiterates the classicizing theme. MORE...
