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804 W Main

Project Overview

Architect: Unknown         Year Built: 1875       Architectural Style: Italianate

 

Architectural and Historical Description

804 W. Main is a beautiful Italianate house that was built in 1878 for Urbana founding father Matt Busey. The Busey home is a typical two-story Italianate house with an L-shaped plan. The house has a low-pitched hipped roof with two protruding chimneys and a stone foundation. The house is constructed of brick which is painted tan. A wide cream colored band emphasizes the cornice. Decorative brackets in pairs can be found on the cornice under the overhanging roof eaves. A rectangular tower, called a cupola, sits in the center of the hipped roof. The windows on the cupola are a paired arch window. The Busey home has a one-story L-shaped porch that wraps around the front of the house. The porch supports are simple, square, classical columns. Thin, rounded arch brackets connect the porch columns. The windows of the Busey home are typical Italianate segmental arched windows which are arranged in horizontal rows along each facade. The windows have paired shutters and a brick segmental arch lintel which are painted orange. The window sashes are divided into two panes each, which is the most common window division for Italianate style houses. There are also small square windows between the brackets below the cornice. The main entrance sits below the porch and has a segmental arched transom over the door. The rear of the house has a one-story exterior porch. All of these characteristics are typical of an Italianate style house and are combined beautifully for the prominent Busey home.
 804 W. Main St. was the first property developed in this area of town. Built by and for Matthew Busey, many of the surrounding properties were built on land that was originally part of the Busey estate.
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- Last Modified -November 17, 2014 - 2:00pm
- Author - admin