PRAIRIE WOEBEGONE
This house, in a small Missouri college town, was converted to apartments decades ago—
but until recent years it was still more-or-less recognizable as the Prairie-influenced design seen in the “original” picture. After a recent extreme makeover—vinyl siding over brick and stone!—all hope may be lost for what was once a nice Arts & Crafts-era home.
“I grew up there, obsessing about old houses,” says OHJ reader Caleb Todd. “When I was about 16 I tried to convince a local real-estate agent that I was interested in buying that very house, so I could get a look inside. It was already a junky frat house in the 1990s, but hadn’t been remuddled yet. Now it’s a sad, sad mess.”
Do…respect original massing (see the side porch); stick to one language (Prairie details were “colonialized”); maintain the relationship to the street.
