Ashe Cottage, also known as the Ely House, is a historic

Carpenter Gothic Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic or Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massin ...

house in Demopolis,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

. It was built in 1832 and expanded and remodeled in the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style in 1858 by William Cincinnatus Ashe, a physician from

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

. The cottage is a -story wood-frame building, the front elevation features two semi-octagonal gabled front bays with a one-story porch inset between them. The gables and porch are trimmed with

bargeboard A bargeboard or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to conceal the otherwise exposed end grain of the horizontal timbers or purlins of the roof. The word ''bargeboard'' is pr ...

s in a design taken from Samuel Sloan's plan for "An Old English Cottage" in his 1852 publication, ''The Model Architect''. The house is one of only about twenty remaining residential examples of Gothic Revival architecture remaining in the state. Other historic Gothic Revival residences in the area include Waldwic in Gallion and Fairhope Plantation in Uniontown. Ashe Cottage was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on August 22, 1975, and to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on 19 October 1978. The Ashe House is given as one of four examples of the paired-gable subtype of Gothic Revival houses in ''A Field Guide to American Houses'' (1984). It is noted as having "very delicate lace-like porches and vergeboard details." Paired gables appear in about five percent of Gothic Revival houses in America.Virginia and Lee McAlester, ''A Field Guide to American Homes'', 1984, Alfred A. Knopf's Borzoi Books, New York. pages 197, 204.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places National Register of Historic Places in Marengo County, Alabama Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Houses in Demopolis, Alabama Carpenter Gothic architecture in Alabama Carpenter Gothic houses in the United States Gothic Revival architecture in Alabama Properties on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage