| Additional Information: | "This farmstead includes a Queen Anne residence and nine outbuildings. Rising from a fieldstone foundation, this two-and-a-half-story farmhouse is generally cruciform in shape, however, a pair of gabled wall dormers interrupt the form to the west and south and a hipped-roof unit is situated within the juncture of the south and west ell projections. The walls are sheathed with clapboard and the building's pedimented gables are defined by a pent, carved brackets and a combination of fishscale- and diamond-patterned wooden shingles. The roof is covered with diamond-patterned, asphalt shingles. A single-story, open porch resting on concrete piers wraps around both the southwest and northwest junctures. The porch's sloping roof is supported by carved posts with a spindled railing.
Simple, carved brackets decorate the eaves of the porch roof. A smaller, second porch with a balcony roof is positioned at the house's southeast ell juncture. Its posts, balustrade and eaves mirror those on the main porch. Other standard, Queen Anne inspired ornamentation includes canted corners on the south (main) facade, each decorated with carved, fan-like ornaments, and diamond-patterned leadwork in several windows, including the small Palladian windows located in both the south and west gables. The vast majority of the fenestration consists of one-over-one, historic-period, double-hung sashes arranged in a generally symmetrical fashion. The windows display a wooden surround with a raised, flat head. All doors are obscured by modern, metal storm doors.
With regard to the outbuildings, the farmstead is dominated by an ell-shaped complex that consists of the following: a large, circa-1940s, rainbow-roof dairy barn with vertical board siding, a smaller, circa-1920s, gambrel-roof basement barn with vertical board siding and two, poured-concrete, circa-1920s silos--one capped with metal and the other with concrete. A concrete-block milkhouse is connected to the rainbow-roof barn's east end. The structures are considered to be in fair condition. The remaining buildings on the farm are in extremely poor condition and consist of a concrete block, shed-roof garage, a front-gabled, average-sized corncrib, two dilapidated, one-story animal barns and the remains of a small brick shed.
Historic plat maps indicate that this property was associated with the Henry Gundrum family as early as 1856. Little is known about the German immigrant except that the 1880 agricultural census reveals that his farming operation was valued at $10,000. This was a sizeable amount at that time and explains how the Gundrum family could afford to build such an elaborate farmhouse. By 1892, Henry's son Louis had taken over the farm; however, it could not be determined whether Henry or Louis had the house constructed. Plats indicate that Louis owned the farm until at least 1915, but by 1929, the parcel was owned by George Weidmeyer. Research revealed no information on Weidmeyer except that he owned the property until at least 1949." February 2000 survey by Heritage Research, Ltd.
April 2024: The Louis and Elizabeth Gundrum House was constructed c.1890. It is a two-story Queen Anne house that is rectangular in plan with a fieldstone foundation, clapboard siding, and multiple asphalt-shingled gable roofs. The front elevation faces south and is asymmetrical in composition. A projecting mass at the center of the elevation is capped by a closed gable containing a Palladian window arrangement with fishscale and diamond-patterned wood shingles cladding the surrounding wall space. The first story of the projecting mass contains a pair of 1-over-1 windows with a pair of 1-over-1 windows at the second story above. Cutaway corners at the first story of the projecting center mass are ornamented by decorative, scroll-cut ornaments. A one-story, hipped-roof porch wraps around the southwest corner of the building and features turned wood supports and decorative modillions below the eaves. Above this, in the south elevation, is a projecting dormer that contains a 1-over-1 window and a closed gable with patterned wood shingles and decorative modillions. Aside from the adjacent barn complex (AHI 120073, outbuildings are not visible from the right-of-way). |
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