The Layout
Electra is a 6 bedroom, 4.5 bathroom Victorian, said to be a Queen Anne built in 1900. Now that we’ve been here and I’m able to nerd out on the architecture and history, I thought I should try to give a visual layout of the house. So here’s my lovely drawing, not to scale (ha.)
The rooms are all pretty big except for the living room, it’s on the smaller side but it’s mostly a challenge because of all the doors and windows. There’s the two doors from the foyer into the living room, then to the left is the doorway to the Study, straight ahead is the large opening with the pocket doors to the dining room, the next wall has a huge picture window and then back on the same wall as the foyer doors is the door to the porch. The couch sort of fits in there, but it definitely fit better at the Napa house.
I lied, the kitchen is also awkwardly small. It’s in the center of the house, with no windows in the room, but it gets a lot of natural light from the dining room windows, the pantry window and the Conservatory windows. There’s not a ton of cabinetry, very little counter space, and somehow the island is massive, but also has the world’s ugliest sink and the dishwasher built into it.
Quickly back to the Queen Anne portion of this post: from everything I’ve read, Queen Anne Victorians are known for being asymmetrical. As you can see, Electra is as symmetrical as it gets. I’m going to dig into this more as I’ve just scratched the surface, but I’m getting the feeling that the house might be a Folk Victorian, an architectural style that was adopted by the middle class who could not afford the grandiose Victorian homes of the time. This house has just enough character and just enough detail and style to scream Victorian, but is more subdued and not as polished as the Queen Annes I’ve seen online. More to come on that…
Another thing to note is that the house is listed as being built in 1900. In my initial research, many cities & counties list 1900 as the year because they aren’t sure. It could be earlier or later by about 5-10 years. More to come on that as well…
You may have noticed that we’re trying to name all the rooms, with some being from Clue. We LOVED Clue when I was growing up and played all the time. Maybe the bedrooms are the names of the people…or the murder weapons! Hmmmmm…. Alas, maybe some of the rooms just need to be named after rooms that don’t really make as much sense, like the Library and the Ballroom. Now I just need secret passageways and my life will be complete.
