501 W Green St.
Project Overview
Architect: Unknown Year Built: 1894 Architectural Style: Queen Anne
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Architectural Description |
| 501 W. Green is a small Queen Anne style house that was built in 1894. The house also has a W-shaped Stick Style detail at the apex of the gable roof. The walls are covered with pale green, horizontal wood siding with cream colored trim. Like many Queen Anne houses, 501 W. Green has a complex roof form, asymmetrical composition, varying wall surfaces, and a variety of window types. The roof has steeply-pitched cross gables on several facades and a unique hipped gambrel roof at the rear. There are four one-story porches around the house; three are exterior, and one is a screened-in porch with less detail. The exterior porch balustrades, porch supports, brackets, and the friezes below the cornices are constructed of delicate spindlework. The porch supports sit on a brick column base. The bases of the porches are decorated with simple square latticework. One of the two first story bay windows is accented by overhanging loop corner brackets. Other windows include tall, thin, double-hung single pane over single pane windows, and two dormer windows that protrude through the roof line. Most of the windows have classical window surrounds. | |
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Historical Description |
| 501 W. Green Street was built for the George Signor and his wife c. 1894 and remained in the family until for almost 90 years. Mr. Signor was a pharmacist at Wm. Sim Drug Co., located in downtown Urbana at 105 West Main Street, and advertized in the 1893 City Director as the "largest dealers in wall paper, paints, curtains, and window glass; they have the most modern drug store in the county and will treat you square." Mr. Signor and his wife resided at this location until their deaths in 1926 and 1943, respectively. During that time they raised two daughters, Nelle (1890-1984) and Ruth, who both graduated from the University of Illinois. Ruth married and relocated to Springfield, while Nelle remained in Urbana and found employment at UIUC as an assistant librarian. During her time at UIUC, Nelle Signor authored the article, "United Nations Versus League of Nation Documentation," (Feb. 1924) which was published in "Special Libraries", a magazine published by the Special Libraries Association. In 1947, Miss Signor took a leave of absence from her position as librarian for the Political Science department at the University to work in Hawaii as the librarian for the Hawaiian legislative reference bureau. Miss Signor was responsible for cataloging documents on Hawaii to prepare legislators who were considering the then territory for statehood. | |
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Map Locations:
510 W. Green St.
