11 SW 15th St
Fort Lauderdale, FL, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Sam Gilliam House (Gilliam--Adams House; BD1999)

Statement of Significant:

Summary

The Sam Gilliam House is an irregularly shaped, two-story building displaying a combination of the Prairie and Mission/Mediterranean Revival styles. Its roof is flat with parapets concealed by pent roofs covered with green barrel tiles. The house was constructed ca. 1925 by local lumber company executive Sam Gilliam. It was built on two lots at the corner of S.E. 3rd Avenue and S.E. 9th Street (lots 22, 23, 24, block 2, Plat of Fort Lauderdale), but moved to 11 S.W. 15th Street (lot 12, block 25, Croissant Park) to avoid demolition in 1998.


Setting

The Gilliam House was originally located 300 S.E. 9th Street at the corner of S.E. 9th Street and S.E. Third Avenue (Figures 1, 2 and 3). In 1998, the house was moved to make way for the construction of a four-story office building on that site (Photo 25). It was relocated to the northeast corner of S.W. 15th Street and S.W. 1st Avenue, where it is just west of the Croissant Park Administration Building, which faces S. Andrews Avenue (Figure 4 and Photo 1). The house is landscaped with newly planted oak trees, shrubbery, and turf block. Across Andrews Avenue from the Croissant Park Administration Building is Broward General Hospital. Originally a residential area, it is now in an area of commercial redevelopment. The areas east and west of the Gilliam House, however, are residential.


Exterior

The house is masonry, stucco-clad hollow clay tile (Photo 2). For the most part, the builder avoided ornamentation, relying on window design and roof treatment to provide visual interest. The house has a flat roof with a parapet and visor (pent) roofs attached to the parapet wall, creating wide, overhanging eaves. The parapet is concealed; it does not project above the pent roof. The first-floor sun room and porte cochere share a pent roof. The roofs are covered in barrel tiles that have been painted green; the green color is original. Decorative loaf shaped tile finials at the roof ridge junctions are prominent design details.

The first floor of the main block of the Gilliam House is a simple massed plan with irregularities on the north (Photo 3) and east (Photo 4). A large, incised, porte cochere is at the southeast corner (Photo 2), and a projecting chimney is centered on the west elevation (Photo 5). The second floor has a simple massed plan with minor irregularities, one of which, at the southeast corner, projects onto the porte cochere roof (Photo 4). The porte cochere has heavy battered piers that support flattened arches. There is a double arch on the east elevation of the porte cochere, with a single arch, on the north and south (Photos 2-4).

The windows are Prairie style wood casements with six small square lights over three long rectangular lights in each leaf. Three or more casements are ganged together as ribbon windows. On the south-facing first floor sun porch, there are two sets of ribbon windows, one with four windows ganged together and one with four windows and a centered door, which are set in flattened arches. This is the same type of arch that is seen on the porte cochere and the main entry on the east facade.
The house retains its architectural integrity to a very high degree. It was boarded up for many years, which had the advantage of preserving many of the windows. About a third of the windows are original; the rest have been replicated to match the originals.


Interior

The interior of the Gilliam House features a lavish use of red oak in such decorative details as wide baseboards, prominent window surrounds, staircase, and fireplace mantles. The living room fireplace is built of smooth- faced red brick and has a boxed oak mantle (Photo 7), while the bedroom fireplace, also of brick, has a single oak board mantle (Photo 20). The fireplace hearths are terra cotta tile. The doors throughout the house are of mahogany and feature an inlaid geometric pattern. The exterior doors have lights with beveled glass. The floors of the house (except in the bathrooms) are of tiger oak.
The main entrance to the Gilliam House is a glazed door with 6/3 beveled lights located at the north end of the porte cochere (Photo 4). It enters directly into the living room (Photo 6), a large area that extends the width of the main block of the house. At the west end of the room is a fireplace built of smooth faced red brick. It features a heavy boxed mantle of red oak with panels and has fluted columns that flank the fire box (Photo 7). The fireplace is flanked by single, 6/2 casement windows. At the east end of the room, three broad steps lead to a landing that provides access to the kitchen and also leads to the stairs to the second floor.

South of the living room is a sunroom which extends across the front of the main block of the house (Photos 8- 10). Two bays of casement windows are set in flat arches similar to the arches of the porte cochere. The casement leaves have a 9/3 light configuration. A door located in the middle of the east bay of windows was originally a main entrance to the house. A wide opening flanked by two slightly battered, squared, fluted columns on the north wall of the living room leads to the dining room(Photos 11 & 12). Double doors on the north wall of the dining room lead to a small room that was perhaps used as a breakfast room. A small telephone shelf is located on the east wall of this room, south of a door that leads to a pantry. A door in the southwest corner of the pantry leads back into the dining room, and immediately south of the pantry is a storage area under the stairs that lead to the second floor. To the east of the pantry is the kitchen which retains its original porcelain double sink. A small half bathroom is located in the northwest corner of the kitchen, next to an exterior door. Three steps in the southeast corner of the kitchen lead to the stair landing that accesses a straight stairway of red oak to the second floor (Photo 14).

The second floor includes a master suite (Photos 15 & 16) composed of a bedroom, sitting room, and bathroom (Photos 17 & 18). There are two additional bedrooms (Photo 19), one of which has a brick fireplace with a wooden mantel (Photo 20). The landing at the top of the stairway also provides access to a large sitting on the rear (north) side of the house (Photo 21), a second bathroom, and a large storage closet. All bedroom closets have beveled mirrors in the doors and are cedar lined.

The second-floor bathroom (Photo 22) has all original fixtures, hexagonal white ceramic floor tile with black tile daisy details. The walls are covered 3/4 of the way up with rectangular white glass tile topped with cove tiles. A decorative geometric border is inset just below the cove. There are original inset soap dishes above the tub and the sink and an inset toilet paper holder. Some of the wall tiles are missing and have been replaced with mosaic tile. A mirrored wooden medicine cabinet (Photo 23) is set into the wall above the sink. The master bathroom has similar original fixtures; the hexagonal ceramic tile floor pattern differs only slightly from that in the hall bathroom (Photo 19).


Alterations

The present owners added central air conditioning in 1999, but installed it so that there were no exposed ducts or dropped ceilings. The vents were designed to be as inconspicuous as possible. A wood fence conceals the outside air conditioning equipment.

The Adamses, the current owners, were required to add a handicap access ramp; due to current building codes, they were not permitted to add concrete steps to replicate the original ones that led to the exterior doors. After discussing ideas with several architects (including preservation architect Walter Marder with the Bureau of Historic Preservation), they designed a wooden deck, which was built in the porte cochere, and a connecting handicap ramp. Native plants were planted to conceal the ramp and the deck. The railings of the deck were designed to resemble, but not mimic, the design of the windows. City codes also required a new foundation that was higher than the original. Fortunately, the Adamses were permitted to build the new foundation so that the house would not be significantly higher than it had been originally. The new elevation from the ground is only seven inches higher than the original height. The only other exterior alterations were the loss of small balustrade walls at the entrances and a low wall between the side arches of the porte cochere. Otherwise, the house retains its original finishes and fixtures and features to a very high degree.