Sunday, August 9, 2009

Exotic hybrid


In common usage, "exotic" is typically understood to mean "excitingly foreign." But biologists and birdwatchers use the term to mean a "non-native species," that is, "a species whose presence in a particular region is due to intentional or unintentional introduction as a result of human activity." The blog was recently delighted to find a house in Winston-Salem that is not only an exotic (in the biological sense) but also a hybrid. We present the results with pride as our 99th blog post. Look at the door and window of this 20th-century house in the Stratford road area of Winston-Salem (it's the one photographed at dusk with the electric lights on). The detail of the doorway matches that of the Ashley House (1734) in Deerfield, Massachusetts; the window trim is from the Sheldon House (1754), also in Deerfield. Some exotic species eventually become "established" in their new locale (a good example, of course, is the honey bee, which is not native to the New World), but this Winston-Salem house seems unlikely to produce offspring in our area.

1 comment:

  1. I know this house. It was on the scavenger hunt for my MALS History of Architecture and Decor class. It is also a saltbox style house; a side gable sloping from two or more stories in the front to a single story in the back. It is a rather faithful (from the outside at least) reproduction of many Colonial Style houses of the Northeast. It would be far more suited for Old Salem (but, again, more of a northern U.S. design).

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