Anderson, William, House

A one-and-a-half-story, side-hall-plan, frame, 'temple cottage' with a square-post front verandah, the William Anderson House is significant in architectural terms in Washtenaw County and southeastern Michigan as a well preserved and particularly handsomely detailed, Greek Revival dwelling which also contains elements more commonly associated with the Gothic Revival. Although modest in size, the Anderson House is a notable example of Greek Revival architecture in southeastern Michigan. A low, end-gable structure with a four-pier porch, guttae-band entablature (a feature common enough in New England and upstate New York but unusual in Michigan), and ornamental grillwork in the frieze, the house is similar to two other area structures, the Henry DeWitt Bennett (Kempf) House in Ann Arbor and the William M. Davis House in Ypsilanti. A significant difference between these two structures and the Anderson House, however, is the latter's handsome frontispiece and molded and paneled window trim. An unusual feature of the Anderson House is its board-and-batten side and rear wall construction. The house is one of the few Michigan examples of a Greek Revival house sheathed in this type of siding (although Greek houses with board-and-batten sheathing are not unknown in New England and New York) and is certainly one of the earliest Michigan structures of any style or type to utilize this newly fashionable form of construction.

The William Anderson House is a modest, one-and-one-half-story, end-gable, Greek Revival structure arranged on the side-hall plan. It has a front portico of four, square piers supporting a full pediment. The structure is clad in vertical, board-and-batten siding. Located in a suburban setting on the edge of Ann Arbor, the Anderson House stands well back from Packard Road and faces southwest. Modest in size, the house is a one-and-a-half-story, end gable, Greek Revival structure with a gabled rear wing and, behind it, an early-twentieth-century, shed-roof addition. It stands on a fieldstone foundation. In front, a portico of four, antae-like, square piers support a classical pediment and an entablature which extends around the side walls as well. The entablature displays a guttae band below the tenia. Its frieze is pierced above the portico by panels fitted with decorative grilles and above the side windows by triple-light and blind eyebrow windows. The facade, including the gable tympanum and front wall back of the portico, is faced with wide horizontal boarding laid flush; the side and rear walls of both the main section and rear wing with vertical, board-and-batten sheathing. The shed-like addition is clad in novelty siding. The front wall, its angles treated with antae like the piers supporting the portico, displays a pilaster-and-entablature frontispiece with sidelights and a dentiled cornice and windows with paneled aprons set into molded surrounds (with angle blocks) which extend down to the porch floor. Blind eyebrow window panels with stylized Tudor hoods pierce the front wall at attic level. The first-floor windows are invariably of the six-over-six, double-hung, sash variety. Arranged on the side-hall plan with a single-flight staircase running up from a hall back of the front entrance, the house has a living room and bedroom in the first floor of the main section and a kitchen in the rear wing. Upstairs are two bedrooms and a bathroom. Like the exterior, the interior has been little altered over the years and retains simple, wide-board, eared, door and window trim with raised edges suggestive of architrave trim. In the first-floor front room the windows have paneled aprons and their surrounds extend to the floor.