Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum

A preliminary study for the house, to modern eyes a far better design than the one finally adopted, makes clear the close relationship to French tradition. The mansard roofs, dormer windows placed immediately above the cornice line, the emphasis upon corner quoining, the tall chimneys decorated with Lienau’s favorite bull’s eye panels (replaced in the executed design by banded chimneys), the effort to make a balanced composition in spite of unavoidable asymmetries — these are all obviously French in origin. In the working drawings certain significant changes were made, presumably at Lockwood’s request: note the raising of the mansard to make room for a fourth story, the elaboration of the pediments capping the second story dormers and the increased use of incised ornamentation on the dormers and porte cochere. These changes bring to the building a certain top-heaviness—less readily apparent in photographs than in the actual building—and a fussy quality which relates it more closely to High Victorian taste. The conflict between Lockwood’s tendencies toward monumentalization and display and Lienau’s simpler, more classical tendencies results in a building which cannot be cited as an altogether successful example of eclectic design. There is a certain overelaboration, a coarseness in detailing (also apparent in the interior), a lack of subordination of parts to the whole which again runs counter to modern critical standards, but was typical of the aesthetic of its own period.