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French Second Empire: Styles
built 636 days ago
Second Empire is an architectural style that was popular during the Victorian era, reaching its zenith between 1865 and 1880, and so named for the “French” elements in vogue during the era of the Second French Empire. While a distinct style unto itself, some Second Empire styling cues, such as quoins, have an indirect relationship to the styles previously in vogue, Gothic Revival and Italianate eras.
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Captain Penniman built his French Second Empire style house on Cape Cod in 1868. Today, over 100 years later, the Penniman House is a National Historic Site owned and interpreted by the National Park Service as part of Cape Cod National Seashore. The house holds the Penniman family's written records and artifact collections, which provide glimpses of the places and people that the family visited on their whaling voyages. Theirs is a true life whaling story representative of hundreds of other whaling captains and their families that traveled the globe to pursue whale fishery.
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The Second Empire style was, at its purest, definitely not a practical style for the man of small means. Nonetheless, the mansard roof was so useful—both as a means of securing additional living space at the top of the building and as a device for adding visual heft and distinction to a small and simple building—that its use by all classes of homeowners was widespread. Even one-storey houses could be dignified by the adding a mansard roof.
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The Penniman House, completed in 1868, was styled after the French Second-Empire period. It included every known comfort of the day and many innovative ideas. The Captain Edward Penniman family enjoyed this fine home for nearly 100 years. Off Route 6, approximately one mile north of the Orleans rotary at Fort Hill in Eastham. Limited Parking.
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When it opened in 1882, the French Second Empire-style Palace Hotel—as the Cincinnatian was then known—quickly became a shining jewel in the Queen City’s crown. A grand walnut-and-marble staircase climbed the eight-story building (the tallest in the city), leading to 300 rooms with shared bathrooms at the end of each corridor, incandescent lighting and several elevators. There were hitching posts out front and the hotel was located where the trolley cars made their turn.
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The two-and-one-half-story frame structure was built in 1898 by Mrs. Rena Fair in the French Second Empire style. In 1929 the front porch was enclosed, and the entire building was stuccoed. Hyannis emerged as a "cowtown" of the Sand Hills area in the 1890s, and the hotel catered to the ranchers who brought their herds of cattle to Hyannis for railroad shipment to market.
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