Flamboyant Plastic House, Fremont, Ohio

Rather off the beat and path is a quaint little town in the mid-western state of Ohio–Fremont.  Fortunately, for Fremont, it is located just off the turnpike so that if your driving from Cleveland to Toledo or Detroit or perhaps vice versa, you might have a moment to take in the local sights, which includes the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center (not a must see, but defintely worth seeing).  Beyond this memorial of sorts, the locals have created their own sights:

Access to Fremont from any kind of major artery (aka the turnpike) is gained through what the greater authorities of Ohio have enumerated as State Route 53, which, once in town, is more eloquently titled as Rawson Avenue.  Not only does this main avenue provide access to the city, it is also maintains the Sandusky County Fairgrounds, which surprisingly is made of several really cool old wood buildings.  However, more noticeable than this is a plastic house in the 500 block of Rawson Avenue.

Like many other streets in America that serve as major arteries into urban centers, Rawson Avenue is no different.  Yet there is a certain diversity in some of the older homes.   This diversity is certainly apparent in the above photographs.  We would like to draw your attention to the plastic house we couldn’t help but notice in good ole’ Fremont.  Here in the 500 block of Rawson, we see an early twentieth century dwelling that has been “improved” with all of the modern materials that can beautify our houses today.  So let’s do this.  We will go over the synthetic features one by one.  The “American Foursquare” is clad in vinyl siding.  The fenestration of the house including both the windows and the front door have been greatly altered.  The front door which was most certainly much more in scale with the house originally has been enlarged to make way for the most typical vinyl front door that is glazed with the “Victorian-wanna-be” oval shaped piece of faux leaded glass.  Only that’s not all.  The Queen Anne revival style door has colonial revival side lights and, who’da thunk it, with faux leaded glass to boot.  The vinyl porch details denote a faux Victorian feel on a post Victorian house as does the vinyl windows and vinyl shutters that are screwed to the vinyl wall that was once wood.  If you look closely you will notice that the shutters aren’t actually large enough to cover the window.  This illustrates the effort to include them as an aesthetic treat.  Going beyond this, we see the elaborate street lamps, the vinyl fences, and the incredibly elegant statuary that is derived from religious to the classical inspirations.  The lone stars within the front gabled roof polish everything off nicely as does the faux fan light above the second story window.  We hope you can appreciate this vulgarized effort to recreate a Victorian-era asethetic.

Furthermore, if you blow up the photos within this post, its worth noting the original brick chimneys.  We hope the home owner will do something immediately about this “unclean” feature as it is a disgusting interruption in their avant-guard creation!!!

Share on Facebook