Talk:Norvell House

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Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Hi fellow contributor,

Glad to see someone else is interested in the beautiful historic houses of Seattle. Thanks for the information on Dragon style, which as you say was itself was a Norwegian development of the Swiss Chalet style. Your point about the Norwegian character of the locality where the house was built being a big influence on it seemed pretty likely, so we wondered why it was described as ‘Franco-Swiss’ when it was nominated for inclusion in the historic landmarks list.

When we checked it out with an architectural historian though she referred us to the wikipedia article on Norwegian architecture and the ‘Dragon style’, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Norway#Nineteenth_century) which states the dragon style “combined motifs from Viking and medieval art with vernacular elements from the more recent past.”

But since the Norvell house doesn’t have any of these Norwegian motifs at all in its decoration, it can’t claim to be an example of Dragon style, only a ‘Swiss Chalet’ influenced home. (Incidentally, there’s also a surviving letter from someone whose family bought the house in 1911 and knew the builder. The letter mentions that the man who did the concrete work on the house was actually Swiss, and the house itself is referred to as a “Swiss Chalet”.) So, as our historian didn't care for the 'Franco-Swiss' designation much either, we have stuck with 'Swiss Chalet'. But we have also left in most of your references to Dragon Style, as it seems relevant to the architectural background of Seattle at the time. RLamb (talk) 16:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

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