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Digitizing Historical Homes

January 17, 2024

Notre Dame architecture students explain their comparative research into Norwegian homes in Bosque County and Norway during Bosque Museum lecture

CLIFTON – When Cleng Peerson encouraged fellow Norwegian Quakers to immigrate to Texas, they invariably brought their culture and skills with them to the new frontier. Many of them were farmers, carpenters and fisherman, skills that were a necessity to be self-sufficient on the new frontier.

The Bosque Museum hosted an entertaining and educational lecture Jan. 14 by architecture students Garrett Nagorzanski and Luke Fortener in which they explained their comparative research of 1840s Norwegian homes and the homes of Norwegian settlers to Bosque County. Their research additionally led them to find a way to digitally reconstruct images the few remaining photos of some of the historic homes in the historic Norse district.

Many of the lecture’s audience who braved Nordic temperatures to be present, had family ties to the homes the architecture students discussed.

Both senior architecture student at the University of Notre Dame, they were able to secure a grant to travel Norway in 2023 to research historic Norwegian homes in Stavanger and Jelsa. Jelsa, a small village in West Norway, in Suldal municipality in Rogaland County, is located along the inner part of the Boknafjorden, near the mouths of the Sandsfjorden and Erfjorden. The town north of Stavanger was the home of Nagorzanski’s great-great-great-grandfather Ovee Colwick.

The Colwijk family moved to Bosque County in 1860, answering an advertisement by Peerson, who offered 160 acres – half of his land – in exchange for a place to live in his declining years. The farm where the Norwegian pioneer and pathfinder Peerson spent his last days on the Colwick property was added to the National Register of Historic Sites in 2015.

Of the 39 Bosque County sites listed on the National Register of Historical Places, 33 are homes and farms in the Norse district. They include the Ringness House, the Quested property and Norway Mill

Several factors are necessary to paving the way into the national registry – the historical relevance and location, a definite tie to the present community – a community dedicated to preserving their history – an intact (archeological) site, the presence of artifacts, related to a special historic figure, the possible presence of a family cemetery and significant documentation to support the development of the site over the years and changes that were made.

Seeing the homes in Norway up close, contacts with Baylor University’s Professor and Department Chair of Museum Studies Kenneth Hafertepe and through research of the Bosque Museum online archives, the students learned about the history of Norwegian immigration to Bosque County and similarities and differences in New World homes, compared to their Old World counterparts. In both locations, the functionality of the houses was predominant, and some similar carpentry traditions like drip sills. Hafertepe encouraged them to “paint a picture on how the pioneers lived,” and get and understanding where they came from and what was familiar to them.

Nagorzanski used the term vernacular when describing the architecture. Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize architectural design which uses locally available resources and traditions to address local building and design needs. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it exists.

In Bosque County, the first homes were single room log cabins – as the Olsen cabin exhibit at the Bosque Museum – built in the same way as log barns and shed in the homeland. The next step was to use the readily available limestone rocks to build more durable and larger homesteads and the surrounding rock walls. The familiar symmetrical “dogtrot” or “shotgun homes” were the floorplan of choice, with the living quarters and utility rooms separated by a passage way, for cooling breezes to pass through the home – a “dobbelhuus” in Norwegian.

Because of the predominantly hotter climate, the Texas homes did away with the central chimney, opting for chimneys on either side of the structure. The stairway to the attic was usually in the central passage. As time passed and more funds became available to the pioneers, they sometimes extended their original homes with wooden plank houses, and added Victorian decorative fret work above the front entrance, and added a porch.

Ed and Phyllis Rieser renovated and live in the 1907 Tobias Knudson home, with very similar symmetrical architecture to the original Norwegian wooden siding homes. The home was built by Phyllis’ grandfather after the abandoned their original rock cabin.

The students documented what they saw in Norway, “old-school” through artistic pen and water color sketches. Many of their sketches show construction and décor details – like the type of window casings, lumber connections and roof gable structure – showing their architectural point of view and interests. Furthermore, Nagorzanski explained the process of measuring and digitizing the buildings. Looking ahead to the future, he talked about the opportunities the new computer modeling allows. At the lecture, reconstruction photos displayed the Colwick Homestead, the Peder Dahl farm and the Grimland farm.

Questions from the audience showed their interest in the historical homes, down to the details of having shutters or not, which were considerations while remodeling. In both Old and New World locations, shutters were very functional In Norway they kept out the biting winter winds, in Texas they shaded from the searing summer sun.

Nagorzanski expressed the hope that their research, digital reproductions and giving lectures would lead to a reinvigorated interest in Bosque County’s historical homes. Many, like the Colwick house, have already fallen victim to the elements and are crumbling into a heap. He hopes to document the historic Texan rock homes in photo book form.

All in all, this research and. documentation adds to the already existing works documenting and preserving information about historic buildings in Bosque County. For example, First State Security Banks’s Rodney Joy commissioned photographer Ave Bonar to photograph Bosque County sites in 1995. Some of the photos can still be seen at the bank’s main office in Cranfills Gap.