William Allen White House, 923-927 North Exchange Street, Emporia, Lyon County, KS

NEW SEARCH

HELP

ABOUT COLLECTION

Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey

2 drawings
1 data pages

How to obtain copies of this item

TITLE:
William Allen White House, 923-927 North Exchange Street, Emporia, Lyon County, KS

CALL NUMBER:
HABS KS-81

REPRODUCTION NUMBER:
[See Call Number]

MEDIUM:
Measured Drawing(s): 2 (24 x 36 in.)

DATE:
Documentation compiled after 1933.

CREATOR:
Historic American Buildings Survey, creator

NOTE:
Survey number HABS KS-81

Unprocessed field note material exists for this structure (N846).

Building/structure dates: 1899 initial construction

Building/structure dates: 1920 subsequent work

National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 71000318

Significance: This site was the home of William Allen White, nationally revered and internationally influential editor of The Emporia Gazette, from 1899 until his death in 1944. It was here that White and his family entertained several United States presidents and other important policy-makers as well as cultural luminaries including writer Edna Ferber, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his Taliesin fellows, poet Walt Mason, and countless other guests. White's important national role as an editor, writer and political advisor inspired designating his home a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The site consists of three structures - the main house, White's mother's house, and a garage - on four adjoining town lots unified by a terraced garden. After the renovation of the three-story main house in 1920-21, by the Kansas City Architectural firm of Wight and Wight, the exterior was changed from an elaborate Queen Anne-styled confection to a more sedate, sophisticated Tudor Revival. This house takes its name, "Red Rocks," from the red Colorado sandstone of the first story, while the two top stories are of red pressed brick, stucco, and wood strips designed to appear as half-timbering. White's mother, Mary Ann Hatten White, lived in the adjacent foursquare house from c. 1904 until her death in 1924. The foursquare house type was very common throughout the middle west in the first two decades of the twentieth century, but here the exterior is made more elaborate by the use of polychrome brick and limestone window lintels and sills - a rather expensive and perhaps somewhat urban treatment for an otherwise ordinary folk house type in a small town. The Kansas State Historical Society is currently renovating the site in preparation for public tours.

SUBJECTS:
KANSAS--Lyon County--Emporia
stone buildings (sandstone)
U.S. Presidents
brick buildings

OTHER TITLE:
Red Rocks

COLLECTION:
Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)

REPOSITORY:
Library of Congress, Prints and Photograph Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA

DIGID:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.ks0203

CONTROL #:
KS0203

NEW SEARCH HELP ABOUT COLLECTION