49 North Main Street

This house was built for Mr.& Mrs. Roy Spencer in 1919. The architectural style of the house has element of the Arts & Crafts California Bungalow style: a low building profile; deep eaves under the roof; and a wide veranda style front porch. While many of these houses were brick or stucco this adaptation was totally constructed of wood clapboard over a wood balloon frame.. Plans for such bungalow derivatives, large & small, were available in the 1920s and 1930s in great variety in catalogs for homeowners & builders. It was also during the 1920s & 1930s when Sears Roebuck sold mail order houses, that is, prefabricated houses shipped in marked pieces to a site for final assembly. Two books about this phenomenon, "America's Favorite Houses" and "Houses by Mail" have drawings of houses like this one, "The Vallejo", page 157 of the first book and "The Sheridan", page 136 from the second, with porches similar to the original porch which was on this house. The present porch was constructed in 1980. The original clapboard below the porch banister was replaced with commercially made turned spindles. At that time the porch was extended around the northeast corner of the front facade. A brick fireplace was added then also.