Superintendent's Cottage
Trudeau Sanatorium Historic District, Reference Number 17
Year built: 1914-15
Architect:
Other names: American Management Association's Gate Cottage
Description: The Superintendent's Cottage is a one-and-one-half story wood frame single-family house. The outstanding feature of this design is the chalet form, with its shallow-pitched elongated gable roof (with asphalt sheathing), wider than it is deep, and almost sweeping the ground at each side, where glassed-in porches lightened the silhouette. This cottage is unusually detailed for a sanatorium building and includes a foundation and two chimneys of square-cut ashlar in irregular courses, grouped six-over-six windows, wide horizontal siding with reveals in imitation of planed logs, Swiss style porch railings of vertical planks with cut-out geometric patterns, full-height sliding windows with solid bases behind the railings on the porches, exposed rafters and large-scale brackets supporting the roof. The south porch has been enclosed and the central multi-pane window on the west side was replaced with a single pane, both probably after 1957. There is an attached gable-fronted two-car garage with folding three-panel doors.
History: In its form, this cottage has no equivalent in the area; though smaller, it is akin in its proportions to McKim, Mead and White's 1886-87 Low House in Bristol, Rhode Island. The architect is not known, but its Chalet style details are similar to the work of local architects Max Westhoff and William G. Distin.
The cottage was under construction in 1914; and by February 1915, the work had been completed and the superintendent Charles R. Armstrong and his wife, both former patients, had moved in. 1 Mrs. Armstrong, the former Marguerite de Longue, had been superintendent of the sanatorium from the retirement in 1903 of Julia Miller, whom she had assisted, until her own health broke down and she retired in 1912. Charles Armstrong took over the responsibilities of superintendent from his wife, continuing until at least 1935. Perhaps the beauty of this cottage was a reward to the Armstrongs for faithful service; surely it reflects the dedication of Marguerite Armstrong, whom Trudeau praised after her retirement: "she still retains her interest, and voluntarily oversees the grounds and directs the landscape gardening, with results which speak volumes for her efficiency and good taste." 2
Sources:
- Mary B. Hotaling, Draft nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, January 1993.
- National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
Comments
Footnotes
1. Marguerite Armstrong Scrapbook #5, 101; and #4, 58.
2. E. L. Trudeau, Autobiography, 288.
