Hawthorne, also known as the Browder Place and Davis House, is a historic Italianate

Italianate architecture

The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

 plantation

Plantation

A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 house and historic district

Historic district (United States)

In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...

 in Prairieville

Prairieville, Alabama

Prairieville is an unincorporated community in Hale County, Alabama. It is the location of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, one of Alabama's National Historic Landmarks. It also has three other sites on the National Register of Historic Places, Battersea, Bermuda Hill, and...

, Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, USA. This area of Hale County

Hale County, Alabama

Hale County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is named in honor of Confederate officer Stephen Fowler Hale. As of 2010 the population was 15,760. Its county seat is Greensboro and it is part of the Tuscaloosa Metropolitan Statistical Area....

 was included in Marengo County

Marengo County, Alabama

Marengo County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is named in honor of a battlefield near Turin, Italy, where the French defeated the Austrians on June 14, 1800. As of 2010 the population was 21,027...

 before the creation of Hale in 1867. Hawthorne is included in the Plantation Houses of the Alabama Canebrake and Their Associated Outbuildings Multiple Property Submission. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on July 7, 1994, due to its architectural significance.

History

Construction on Hawthorne began in 1818. It was eventually enlarged to a large house with over 30 rooms and a full basement by the Manning family. The property was later purchased by Dr. James Daniel Browder; by the end of the Civil War he had down sized most of the existing structure and completed the house as it stands today. The architect for the project was J. W. Tayloe, a local gentleman-builder. He and the client designed the house with inspiration drawn from Samuel Sloan's 1852 publication of The Model Architect. The house and surrounding grounds, including Dr. Benjamin Duggar's office, were purchased by Joe Lee Davis and Ernestine Davis in the 1950s and remain in that family.

Architecture

Hawthorne is built in the Italian Villa

Italianate architecture

The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...

 style. It comprises a main two-story block, a three-story tower, and an adjoining one-story wing. A one-story porch with corbel

Corbel

In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...

 brackets wraps around the main block of the house. The gable

Gable

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

s and eaves

Eaves

The eaves of a roof are its lower edges. They usually project beyond the walls of the building to carry rain water away.-Etymology:"Eaves" is derived from Old English and is both the singular and plural form of the word.- Function :...

 on the main section and tower are also bracketed. Numerous French doors open onto the porch from the parlor and dining room. The tower contains an arched entrance vestibule at the base. It originally had arched windows on the third level, as well as decorative woodwork on the second level and around the ground floor archway. The tower windows have been replaced by simple square sash windows and the decorative details have been simplified with the addition of synthetic siding.