405 Collins Street
Plymouth, WI, USA

Henry H. Huson, House and Water Tower

Home history of the Henry H. Huson, House and Water Tower located at 405 Collins Street, Plymouth, WI, USA

From the National Register of Historic Places:

"The Henry H. Huson house sits on a two-acre lot studded with mature trees on Collins Street in the small city of Plymouth, Across the street on a smaller lot is the water tower which was built by Huson in 1887 to serve his house.

The House

The form of the house, a two-story frame structure, changed by accretion several times in the 19th century. An 1870 bird’s-eye map of Plymouth shows a two-story east-west section with its gable running parallel to Collins Street, From the front projects a wing of the same height. The July 3, 1873 Plymouth Reporter noted that a major addition (18 x 38; was being constructed. This was no doubt the wing to the rear, which gives the house a cruciform shape. This wing is two-stories high near the main block of the house and steps down to one-story at the rear, It might also have been in 1873 that the three-story tower was constructed, filling in the northwest corner of the "el" between the front (north) wing and the main block.

Across the front of the house, unifying the north wing and the tower extends an elegantly simple wooden porch. Flattened arches spring from impost blocks composed of molding strips on square posts. An iron balustrade of foliate scrolls topped by a row of wrought iron starflowers trims the roof of the porch. The front entrance door leading into the tower is pierced by two round-arched lancets, A top light is decorated in late 19th century stained glass rosettes. Two French windows also open onto the front porch. The top sash of e^-ch window is ringed by tiny stained glass panes in the Queen Anne style.

The siding protected by the porch is composed of narrow, flush boards. Elsewhere on the first floor narrow clapboards abut at corner posts. The second story is sided with vertical board and batten. The tall, square tower is also sided with board and batten. Doubled windows with sixteen lights in the top sash and single panes below light the interior. The hipped roof on the tower is crowned by a lacy iron cresting.

On the west side of the house the roof of the main east-west section projects out a bit to cover a two-story Queen Anne rectangular bay. The tall rectangular windows are edged with tiny stained glass panes and a window box decorates the ground level. In the southwest "el" between the main and rear wings is another porch trimmed much like the front porch. The back one-story wing is entirely board-and-batten. Projecting from the southeast corner of the "el" is another one-story wing containing a bathroom and a solarium. This wing is probably a late addition. Tucked into the "el" in the northeast corner is another small porch.

Wood shingles cover the roof. The house is painted in its late 19th century colors— brown with blue shutters, doors and steps.

One enters the oak-trimmed front hall under the tower. To the left is the front parlor, which takes up the whole north wing. The east-west section contains a study to the left, which features stained glass doors, the old central hallway with its narrow stairway, and the living room with a corner mahogany fireplace hand-carved in England. In 1965 when Alice Huson Bush died, the family removed the light fixtures and the mantel. When it became certain that the house would be preserved, they returned the mantel to its place in the living room.

The first room in the rear wing is the dining room, with wainscoted walls and an oak parquet floor. Next are the pantry and the kitchen, which also has an oak parquet floor, and glassed cabinets, and a wooden cookstove. The last room is a summer kitchen.

Upstairs are four bedrooms. The room above the living room has an oak parquet floor. All others in the house not specified above are floored in maple."