Taylor House

MASE-21
216 Water Street, Richmond
1860-1870

The Taylor House is a two-story frame residence with clapboard siding. Its first owner Mr. Taylor, a carpenter, reputedly constructed the house himself, using scraps of different woods. 

Originally single-pile, the house contains five bays on the street facade. Its interior end chimneys, which project above a steep gable roof, its central two-story veranda, and its board-and-battens on the gable ends emphasize verticality. The three-bay veranda contains baluster-turned posts, scrolled brackets, and, on the second-story level, a lattice railing. Wooden bargeboard, carved in a curvilinear pattern, decorates the gables and eaves. On each of the gable ends are two very small attic windows in the Gothic trefoil shape. 

The central entrance door on the first level is formed by the same curved, sawn lintel ornament and simple pilasters as the second level entrance door. All eight windows on the facade are trimmed with shouldered architrave molding, a feature typical of mid-nineteenth-century Greek Revival style.