The Outing Club is located in the central part of

Davenport, Iowa Davenport ( ) is a city in Scott County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. It is situated along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state. Davenport had a population of 101,724 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 cen ...

, United States. It has been listed on 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 ...

since 1977. In 1985 it was included as a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

in the Vander Veer Park Historic District.

History

In the early 1890s, the Rev. A.M. Judy of First Unitarian Church saw a need for a place for the young people of his congregation to gather for recreation and sporting activities. He enlisted the support of the Unity Club and they found that the estate of J.D. Brewster on Brady Street near Central Park, now Vander Veer Park, was available. The house would serve as a clubhouse and the grounds were large enough to support tennis and a variety of field sports. Citizens from the larger community expressed interest. Davenport's social elite took up Judy's idea and transformed what was a simple recreational facility and made it into an exclusive club by selling subscriptions. with In June 1891, subscriptions to participate in the club began, and the required 300 were realized by July. The former Brewster residence was purchased and the club was organized. As the club grew, outdoor concerts and dances were held. A bowling alley and shooting gallery were added. A larger clubhouse was required and a

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the arch ...

structure was built in 1903. It included dining rooms, smoking and billiard rooms, a reading room and a ballroom. A fire destroyed the building in April 1905, but it was rebuilt and opened in July of the same year. Davenport architect Parke T. Burrows was responsible for the designs of the present building. The club has continued to grow over the years and it has expanded its facilities and activities.

Architecture

The historic designation includes two buildings, the main clubhouse and the bowling alley. Both are of frame construction. The 1905 clubhouse is a square, two-story structure that is capped with a

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other vertical sides ...

. The main facade features a large tetrastyle portico with columns in a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

Ionic style. The opening between the two center columns is extremely wide to visually show off the wide front entrance. The

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

s are bracketed, and the tympana has a semi-circular

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...

with radiating

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support th ...

. There are

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s at the junction of the portico with the house that terminate at the second-floor level. A wide porch is located on the west and on a portion of the south elevations of the clubhouse. It forms a terrace on the second floor. The porch is supported by attenuated

Tuscan column The Tuscan order (Latin ''Ordo Tuscanicus'' or ''Ordo Tuscanus'', with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two classical orders developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but wit ...

s. A porte-cochere is located on the south elevation. The north elevation had a portico similar to the west elevation, but it was replaced by a later addition. The bowling alley is older than the main clubhouse, having been built sometime in the 1890s. It was originally a two-story structure, but it was struck by lightning in 1916 and remodeled into a single-story structure. The second story had housed billiard and card rooms. The building houses four bowling alleys. The pins were set by hand until 1976. The main facade is divided into nine

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

. The entrances are located at the two ends of the rectangular structure and extend slightly beyond the main wall to form end pavilions. The doorways are framed by

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

s that are capped with flat

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

s. Paired Corinthian pilasters frame the ends of the pavilions. The windows in the center bays where the bowling allies are located are divided into four unequal sections by a Latin-cross

sash A sash is a large and usually colorful ribbon or band of material worn around the human body, either draping from one shoulder to the opposing hip and back up, or else encircling the waist. The sash around the waist may be worn in daily attire, ...

References

External links

Club website
{{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in 1905 Colonial Revival architecture in Iowa Buildings and structures in Davenport, Iowa Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Davenport, Iowa Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Iowa 1905 establishments in Iowa