Hamilton Clay House
621 Oak Street
The Hamilton Clay House is a wide-bodied, two-story frame house occupying a large corner lot in the heart of the Oak Street historic preservation planning area.
It is eligible for Heritage Landmark designation because it is a notable local example of Late Victorian period cottage architecture. Built in 1905, it is also historically significant for its association with the broad pattern of residential development in one of Farmington’s oldest residential neighborhoods.
It was the residence of newspaperman Ham Clay, Sr. from circa 1906 until his death in 1951. Clay was a native of Iowa who moved to Minnesota in 1903 and founded newspapers in Lakeville and Farmington.
The older residential neighborhoods in Farmington, in particular the Oak Street historic preservation planning area, have very distinctive streetscapes. Oak Street itself has a large and intact collection of houses built between the 1870’s and the 1930’s. The original 1866 town plat acknowledged that Oak Street would be residential in character. The streets were wide and the blocks were subdivided into fairly small rectangular lots. This meant that fairly substantial houses would have to be built on multiple lots. Over time, a diverse mix of housing types were built, with big houses placed next to smaller dwellings. Front yards were spacious and each house was set back from the street about the same distance as its neighbors, with its main entry opening onto the street.
Although it is essentially a vernacular construction, the Hamilton Clay House does exhibit several traits commonly associated with the Queen Anne Style. The Queen Anne architectural fashion statement has become nearly synonymous with “Victorian” and was in vogue between circa 1885 and 1910. The American Queen Anne was the picturesque style in the late nineteenth century American city. The form of these buildings was highly irregular, and special emphasis was given to the picturesque silhouette produced by gables and dormers, high chimneys, towers, turrets, and pinnacles. Round or hexagonal corner towers with conical pointed roofs and extensive porches which often wrapped themselves around the house were characteristics of the style. In plan, the best of these houses were of the living-hall type with wide openings from the hall into the other family living spaces. The house was renovated in the 1980’s and stands today as one of Farmington’s architectural showplaces.
Designated on 09/04/01.
