The Federal style of architecture was based upon the work of a Scottish architect named Robert Adam, hence the style is also called Adam style. Adam was a prominent architect during the 1760s and 1770s in England. He was inspired by Roman ruins in Italy, by their colorful interiors and different shaped rooms, as well as the decorative motifs using urns, garlands and sheaves of wheat. Adams used many of these things in his reserved exteriors and classical fireplaces.
The style was called Federal because the leaders of the young United States of America favored it. The houses built in this style were two rooms deep, rectangular in shape, symmetrically placed and contained a central hall with flanking rooms.
The Davenport House has been described as "one of the finest examples of Federal architecture in America" (p. 46, J. Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil).
The Davenport House is on the National Register of Historic Places and was surveyed in the 1930s by architects with the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS); those drawings are housed in the Library of Congress and can be accessed on the internet. |
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