For our first Heritage Prowl, we ventured over to an entire city block that has been designated as a Heritage Conservation District: the 200 block of Prado Place, which is right off of Riverside Drive. As the afternoon sunlight filtered through the canopies of trees, we strolled slowly up the street, a print-out of the Windsor Municipal Heritage Register and pen in hand.
We saw beautiful examples of the following styles: Arts & Crafts; Vernacular Salt Box; Cape Cod; Dutch Colonial; Colonial Revival; Vernacular Cottage; Foursquare; Bungalow; and Vernacular English Cottage. One block south of Wyandotte we also got our first view of clinker bricks on a Tudor Revival house. Most of the houses on the block were built in 1929, but there was one 1920, a 1921 and a couple built in 1924. We also saw a few ranch style houses that had been added in the 1950s.
It was a lot of fun, and we got to explain to the neighbours out walking their small dogs what we were up to (not casing their houses).
It’s really handy knowing the names of the house styles. I can now stop saying things like, “I can’t stand those houses with the such-and-such type of windows and the blah, blah, blah.” And I’ll be able to say things like, “Hey, look at that cute bungalow.”
Curious. How does knowing the name of a style of house turn a dislike for a style of window to a “cute bungalow”?
No, no, sorry. I mean I’ll be able to name the kind of house I hate and I’ll also be able to draw Sylvain’s attention to a cute house when we pass one by. In scenario #1 he’ll know which style I’m talking about that I hate. And in scenario #2 he’ll know which house I’m pointing out to him that I think is cute. Two different situations, two points in time. In both cases it helps to have some terminology of styles.