Abandoned house in Louisiana

James Wade Bolton House, Alexandria Louisiana

Date added: July 08, 2023 Categories: Louisiana House

The Bolton House, which dates from 1899, is significant as an extremely large and pretentious example of the way in which the Queen Anne style was generally assimilated into Louisiana residential architecture. As a rule, the finer Louisiana Queen Anne residences were designed as follows. The traditional Louisiana central hall plan, raised house, with one principal floor and a wing in the rear, was made asymmetrical and irregular through the use of applied gables, dormers, semi-octagonal bays, and curving verandas. The interiors were connected through the use of large sliding doors. The design of Bolton House was achieved just this way. But beyond that, Bolton House is one of the largest examples of this kind of hesitant inculcation of Queen Anne in the state. For example, finer residences of this sort usually have four to six rooms on the principal floor. Bolton House has thirteen. Houses of this sort typically have one or two semi-octagonal bays. Bolton House has five. Finally, at Bolton House the characteristic curving front veranda extends to an immense length of 15 bays.

Bolton House is also significant by its association with the Bolton family, several of whom have been prominent bankers in the Alexandria area. James W. Bolton, builder of Bolton House, was president of the Rapides Bank and Trust Company from 1912 to 1936 and was also president of the Louisiana Bankers' Association in 1916 - 1917. James Calderwood Bolton served as president: of the Rapides Bank from 1936 to 1956. He also held the offices of vice president of the American Bankers' Association and president of the LSU Foundation. The accomplishments of other members of the family have been along these same lines, but are too numerous to mention.

Building Description

Bolton House and its two dependencies occupy half a block at the corner of St. James and Main Streets. It is the only residential property in that part of downtown Alexandria, which is immediately behind the Red River levee. The surrounding blocks are characterized by low-scale commercial buildings which vary in age from approximately five to fifty years.

Almost a fifth of the Bolton House property is taken up by an asphalt parking lot. Several large live oaks serve to shade the parking lot and obscure much of the house. The property is partially encompassed by a cast-iron fence of simple design.

All three of the buildings are long-leaf yellow pine frame clapboard structures, raised about three and a half feet above the ground on brick piers.

The Bolton House itself consists of thirteen large rooms on one floor under a large unfinished attic. The plan is a greatly enlarged version of the conventional Louisiana Queen Anne house plan. The house is entered through a long central hall with two rooms on each side. At the end of the hall is a large square room with a simple, newel-posted staircase on one side, and a fireplace on the other. Although this room makes the pretense of being a living hall, it is merely a closed-off box, which does not serve to create spatial effects, either within itself or in conjunction with any of the surrounding rooms.

At the rear of the house is a kitchen wing, which appends to the large dining room, and a second wing containing two bedrooms.

The house contains five semi-octagonal bays, three of which are set below full gables in the usual Queen Anne fashion. There are four chimneys which serve a total of six fireplaces. There is a solarium on the side and an all-encompassing, fifteen-bay Ionic porch that curves and wraps its way around the entire front half of the house. The partial screening was added later.

The exterior is an extended assemblage of different-sized gables, semi-octagonal bays, hip-roof dormers, tall chimneys, Colonial Revival columns, and large plate glass windows, many of which have movable shutters. The composition is irregular, though not dynamic.

The interiors are large and plain, with fifteen-foot ceilings and molded doorways, window frames, and skirting boards. The central hall, the two parlors, and the dining room have five denticular cornices and paneled wainscotting.

These rooms communicate by means of large oak-paneled sliding doors. Floors in these more formal areas are veneered to give the appearance of rectangular patterns of floorboards.

The house is in need of repair. Some of the veneering is peeling off, about 40% of the wainscotting has been removed, and the mantels have been taken out and stored by the owners. However, the city of Alexandria intends to acquire the house, and repair it, and convert it to a crafts center. At such time the mantels will be replaced.