54 Main Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 1½ storey house with shingle-clad walls and asbestos slated hipped roof, designed and constructed in the manner of a Californian bungalow. Main entrance faces west.

West elevation symmetrical, single-storey; comprises a segmental arched entrance bay or verandah, recessed between two canted bays.
Walls of wooden shingles with a white painted concrete basement appearing below. Windows rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 1 over 1, with horns, with lattice pattern glazing bars to upper sash; set in moulded surrounds with splayed wooden cills.
Verandah floor finished with granolithic or concrete surface with surface incisions to represent separate slabs. Moulded concrete front doorstep.

Rectangular doorway: timber, panelled, with plain brass knob and letterbox with wooden subsill; moulded surround; all painted white. Black painted iron lamps on brackets to each side of doorway; with one window each side of doorway. To each side of verandah is a white painted timber slatted garden seat suspended on flat iron hangers fixed to inside of archway and fixed to porch wall above windows, later additions (the spaces originally occupied only by folding deckchairs). Ceiling of verandah tongued and grooved sheeted.
Roof of asbestos slates, later replacement for original shingled roof: well weathered to upper part of pitch, laid in diagonal pattern, but new to lower part which is laid in regular courses.

Swept roof to dormer above verandah.

Main roof has red painted flashings over angle ridges.

Front of dormer contains two coupled rectangular timber casement windows of lattice pattern glazing; shingled cheeks to dormers and shingled front.

Roof overhanging on shaped timber brackets, with tongued and grooved soffits. PVC guttering.

Two chimneys, of red brick with plain projecting concrete cornice; red pots.

PVC gutter to dormer with PVC downpipe.

North elevation comprises main storey, shingled, on a white painted concrete basement. Roof hipped and slated as previous; rear return extending to left with swept roof. Small original rooflight in main roof.

Canted bay of main storey has a rectangular window in each angled face, sashed 1 over 1, with horns; to each side of canted bay is a similar rectangular sashed window, with a two-light lattice glazed fixed light to right of that.

Basement windows are, from left to right: rectangular timber fixed light with top-hung vent; rectangular timber fixed light, single pane; two small rectangular timber casements, lattice glazed.

Rear elevation two-storey with dormered attic, asymmetrical, comprising main rectangular block of house, with central projecting bay, and projecting rear return to right hand side.

Main block has hipped roof slated as previous with sprocketed eaves. Swept dormer with shingled cheeks; four windows to front, each a rectangular timber sliding sash, 1 over 1, with horns; PVC rainwater goods; red brick chimney projecting forward from dormer between first and second windows; concrete cap and modern pot.

PVC rainwater goods to main roof. Main block has shingled walls over white painted concrete basement. Window to basement to left hand side is rectangular sashed, 3 over 3, with horns.

Window above in main storey is a large rectangular timber fixed light, with moulded surrounds, wooden cill.

Central projection is built of concrete, white painted; comprises a rectangular oriel carried on a side wing wall. One large window in main face, rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 5 over 1, with long horns. One small window in side wall of oriel, rectangular timber fixed light, lattice glazed.

Below oriel is a recess running back to rear wall of main block, with white painted reveals. Rectangular timber fixed lights, single pane, to basement below.

Rear return is a later addition, built out over original concrete steps to rear giving access to original back door. Materials are shingles to upper part with white painted concrete below. Lattice glazing to small windows flanking basement door; door 6-panel original.
Back door, reached by new flight of wooden steps, is a modern glazed and panelled door. Large rectangular timber fixed light to main storey of return; PVC rainwater goods.

Extending to the east from the north-east corner of the house on the rear elevation is a range of outbuildings in white painted render and rubble stonework, of no architectural interest or merit.

South elevation: single storey with half basement. Hipped roof of asbestos slates laid diagonally, with bottom courses horizontal. PVC gutter on white painted timber fascia; soffit and shaped roof beams as previous.

Main wall clad with shingles; basement area white painted concrete. Right hand half of wall elevation comprises a canted bay. Three windows in canted bay: broad rectangular timber picture window in centre, single pane with moulded wooden surrounds; rectangular timber sliding sash, 1 over 1, with horns to each angled face of canted bay. To left of bay is a small rectangular timber fixed light of lattice glazing; to extreme left is a rectangular timber sliding sash, 1 over 1 as previous.

Basement has two windows: small rectangular timber, lattice glazed, large timber surround; concrete cills.

In front face of canted bay of basement, a large rectangular timber sliding sash, 3 over 3, with horns.

SETTING: The house stands within the built-up area of the village, facing the main street but set back from it within its own garden. Well kept garden with lawns to front, rear, and south side. Front boundary formed partly by short piers of rubble stonework, painted white, with chain-link fencing; small pedestrian gate of lattice timber-work painted white, original; and front boundary formed partly by a rubble stone rockery wall to south-west corner.

South boundary formed by modern diagonally slatted wooden fence along line of new driveway cut through original garden to provide access to modern private house development to rear of garden.

North boundary to front of house formed by hedge with small original pedestrian gate, similar to front gate; to rear of house, beyond outbuildings is a pair of wooden gates, of lattice form, which look original, forming a vehicular entrance.

Historical information

Designed and built for himself by William Calwell c 1908, and constructed using shingles brought by a Captain Orr from New Orleans. The shingles on the roof were later replaced at an early date by asbestos slates by Calwell as he was concerned about the hazards of fire. The lower courses of Calwell's slates were more recently replaced by the present owner. Calwell (1863-1953) had emigrated from his native Ballycarry in 1881 to San Mateo near San Francisco, California, USA, where he was apprenticed to his uncle Robert Wisnom as a carpenter and builder. He eventually set up on his own designing and building houses in the San Mateo area, but in 1907 returned to Ballycarry where he was involved in setting up a milk co-operative under the name of the 'BB Farm'. He also designed and built a number of houses in the Ballycarry area, such as nos 52 and 69 Main Street, and 60 Island Road. This house at 54 Main Street was originally known as 'The Bungalow', and was so marked on the OS map of 1921, but with the proliferation of bungalows in the area in recent years that name has now been dropped by the present owner. The house apparently attracted local attention as the first example of a bungalow to be built in the area. Lived in by William Calwell until his death in 1953, when it was taken over by his daughter and his son-in-law, the present owner.

References - Primary Sources
1. Information from the owner in 1999.
2. OS Map 1921, Co Antrim 47 (named 'The Bungalow').
3. Typescript album including 'The Story of the B.B. farm by William Calwell' and 'Memories of my father by Avy Elfving' in possession of the owner of the house in 1999; photocopy of album placed in MBR files in 1999.
4. Old photograph of the house taken soon after completion and showing original roof covering; in possession ofowner.
5. Original watercolour painting of house by J.W. Carey, undated, but depicting it in its original state; in possession of owner

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a house of some architectural and local historical interest, in an unusual architectural idiom designed by a local builder, which retains a number of its original features both inside and outside.