More House Gawking

I had gone out this afternoon with the intent of taking lots of pictures of azaleas and dogwood, two of my favourite flowers. But I got distracted by more stunning architecture in Guilford. It's funny, but having lived in a nearly adjoining neighbourhood most of my growing up life, this is the first time I've really explored the streets in a purposful manner.

1) I would take this house in a heartbeat. Look at the way the two smaller windows above the front door help balance everything and keep it symmetrical.
Look at the incredible front door with the fanlight over it. Check out the pineapple in the broken pediment over the front door and the two lion-heads on the doors. I love how the glass front doors allow you to see straight through to the back. I am pretty sure that there's an amazing garden back there, given what the front looks like. 2) This is a semi-detached, meaning two houses sharing a common wall on the same property. Even if you divide this in half, it's still pretty massive. It's hard to tell that this is two houses, and there are about four like this on a little piece of the road. This house would not be out of place in England.3) I am trying to wrap my head around this one. I think it's got a lot of potential, and it's got some good features, but I worry about how small the windows are and how dark the house would be. What does it need? Plantings? Shutters?
4) This is the pumping station for the reservior that serves the neighbourhood. Classic. Simple. Elegant. I wish modern industrial buildings were still built like this. This would make a great house. A talented architect could do wonders with this. Too bad the city owns it.

5) I like the lines of this house a lot. It's pretty straight-forward, but with enough detail to make it special. The arches over the front windows and then the sidelights on the windows above are terrific.

But what caught my eye were the shutters and the detailing over the front door. Great fanlight. Great keystone. Great black iron urns. But the diamond in the circle in the square on the shutters! Whew!!

6) This house was probably designed by Edward Palmer and William Lamdin around the early 1900's. They designed a number of houses in this neighbourhood which all have a special flair to them. As a recent article put it "Flourishes such as dovecotes, turrets, round windows mixed with rectangular ones and the aptly named “eyebrow dormers” peek out." I wish they had done something different with the downspouts, like painted them.

Your turn. Which do you like, and why do you like it?