I went for a walk around Salem yesterday and suddenly noticed lots of orange houses. I hadn’t realized there were so many; this is obviously another (old) design trend that has passed me by. The orange houses of Salem are all on side streets and relatively small in scale, which is probably a good thing, as it’s a pretty powerful color. No orange houses on stately Chestnut Street where Federal houses predominate and yellow is an exotic color, or on the main street of Salem, Essex Street, or on Washington Square, the street which surrounds the Common. But if you look down any side street running off these broad boulevards, you’ll most likely see a pop of orange on a colonial or Victorian house. Here is a sampling: two orange houses right around the corner from our house, a mid-nineteenth century Gothic Revival cottage and a Georgian double house near the Common, a melon-colored house with Derby Wharf and The Friendship almost in its backyard, a wall of orange on a Derby Street triple-decker, and another gambrel-roofed later eighteenth-century house off Federal Street.
Surprising but true: I could not find an orange house on Orange Street!
May 4th, 2011 at 7:51 am
No, no, no, no, no.
May 4th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Don’t worry Steve, there are no orange GREEK REVIVALS. There is a pink one, though.
May 4th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Hah! I think Steve is not a fan..
I like the first couple, but that blue shuttered home is a bit much. I had to look away before it induced vertigo!
May 4th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
They actually all look very nice on the street, in the midst of a a sea of grays and browns and creams. I should add a streetscape shot.
May 4th, 2011 at 9:55 pm
I’m president of the board of an historic house museum in Maine—the Jonathan Fisher House. We know the house to originally have been painted with a paint Fisher mixed himself with ochre dug on the property. Recently, Kevin Murphy, author of a new book about Fisher brought to my attention an entry in Fisher’s journal in which he mentions finishing painting the orange on the upper part of his house. Needless to say, armed with that bit, we are seeking paint analysis grants. I rather like many of the orange houses, myself.
Interesting post, as always.
May 5th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
We love our colorful homes in New Orleans! Glad to see some in your town too.
May 25th, 2020 at 5:10 pm
There was quite a fight on Federal Street once due to an orange house. Hope it has mellowed.
May 29th, 2020 at 7:12 pm
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