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William Allen White House, 923-927 North Exchange Street, Emporia, Lyon County, KS

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William Allen White House, 923-927 North Exchange Street, Emporia, Lyon County, KS

description

Summary

Significance: This site was the home of William Allen White, nationally revered and internationally influential editor of The Emporia Gazette, from 1899 until his death in 1944. It was here that White and his family entertained several United States presidents and other important policy-makers as well as cultural luminaries including writer Edna Ferber, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his Taliesin fellows, poet Walt Mason, and countless other guests. White's important national role as an editor, writer and political advisor inspired designating his home a National Historic Landmark in 1976. The site consists of three structures - the main house, White's mother's house, and a garage - on four adjoining town lots unified by a terraced garden. After the renovation of the three-story main house in 1920-21, by the Kansas City Architectural firm of Wight and Wight, the exterior was changed from an elaborate Queen Anne-styled confection to a more sedate, sophisticated Tudor Revival. This house takes its name, "Red Rocks," from the red Colorado sandstone of the first story, while the two top stories are of red pressed brick, stucco, and wood strips designed to appear as half-timbering. White's mother, Mary Ann Hatten White, lived in the adjacent foursquare house from c. 1904 until her death in 1924. The foursquare house type was very common throughout the middle west in the first two decades of the twentieth century, but here the exterior is made more elaborate by the use of polychrome brick and limestone window lintels and sills - a rather expensive and perhaps somewhat urban treatment for an otherwise ordinary folk house type in a small town. The Kansas State Historical Society is currently renovating the site in preparation for public tours.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N846
Survey number: HABS KS-81
Building/structure dates: before 1899 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1920-1921 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 71000318

date_range

Date

1933 - 1970
person

Contributors

Historic American Buildings Survey, creator
Kansas State Historical Society
Wight & Wight
White, William Allen
White, Mary Ann, Hatten
Ferber, Edna
Wright, Frank Lloyd
Mason, Walt
Utz, Steven, project manager
Kansas State Historical Society, sponsor
Davidson, Lisa, transmitter
Gunderson, Courtney L, delineator
Klein, Frederick A, delineator
Lenard, Marton, delineator
Leibowitz, Rachel, historian
Utz, Steven B, delineator
Arzola, Robert R, project manager
place

Location

Emporia (Kan.)38.40949, -96.17541
Google Map of 38.409492, -96.17541
create

Source

Library of Congress
copyright

Copyright info

No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html

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