NarrativeA two-story
frame Italianate residence with off-center campanile type
tower and wide bracketed eaves and a low pitched hip roof.
The house is square in plan with a two- story bay window at
the west side and an ell at the east rear. There is a
two-story rear wing. The windows are segmentally arched in
straight architraves and have arched shutters. The third
story of the tower is marked by a wide intermediate cornice
and the windows are arcaded, three to a side, and treated as
a belvedere. The brackets at the eaves are closely spaced
modillions and there is low iron cresting and a weathervane
finial on the tower. There is an attached one-story front
porch with bracketed cornice. The columns on the porch are
known to be later additions, and it is assumed that the
porch has also been altered. The second story window in the
tower is floor length and probably led to a balcony. In
addition, it is likely that there were wooden arch brackets
in keeping with the Italianate style of the rest of the
building.
The Tinnen House is one of the few
true frame Italianate residences surviving in Texas. The
style was not able to attract many Texans away from the
Greek Reviva1 mode, and where it exists it came very late
and usually only as wide bracketed eaves and porch ornament.
The asymetrical type tower of the Tinnen House and the
arched windows are thus unusual. It is probable that the
front porch has been stripped of arched brackets and a
balustrade, and known that the columns are larger than the
original ones. The house is located on one acre of land near
the business district of Georgetown. The land was purchased
by Clarence Dilley for $250 on October 7, 1879. Previous
owners have been John S. Knight, Simon Gaus, James J.
Dimmitt, and J. Y. Neiblan. Dilley was a lumberman, and the
wood in the house he built is white cypress from Louisiana.
He built the home for his bride, but when she died, he left
Georgetown.
The house was sold for $4,500 to John
Tinnen in 1883. Records of dates are vague but the house was
left vacant for twenty-five years. Mr. and Mrs. Earl Dodson
purchased the Tinnen House in 1963, and have replumbed and
rewired the residence, but have made few structural changes.
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