Taylor Brown's Architect

Geo. F. Barber, from "Greater Knoxville Illustrated," ca. 1910. Published by the American Illustrating Company, Nashville, Tennessee. p. 133

As the turn of a new century approached in the late 1890s, Taylor Brown decided he wanted a more elegant home as a sign of his status in Midland society as a successful rancher and businessman. Most homes in the young city were rudimentary ones, built without any formal plans. Brown desired more for his family than the multi-room "shotgun" house they currently had on Weatherford Street. He found what he wanted in an 1894 catalog by the architect George Barber.
George F. Barber (1854-1915) began his architectural career in Dekalb, Illinois in the mid 1880s, but moved his practice to Knoxville Tennessee in 1888. Barber's architectural plans became widely known across the U. S. through his publication of pattern books that contained sketches and floor plans he designed for a great variety of homes. He published many different pattern books, and some even had several editions that were published yearly over a span of many years. Structures using his designs were built in every state of the union by 1913, and several homes were even built in Canada and overseas.
People such as Brown who were considering building a house often purchased his books to become better acquainted with the building process, and to see what was available for home designs. Since these books were filled with interesting and attractive designs, it was very easy for people to fall in love with several of them, let alone one of them. They would then engage in writing to Barber with information about their specific circumstances and the designs they preferred from the pattern books they saw.
Barber would then design a home for them that took into account their needs and desires as communicated by the letters they wrote and the information they provided. Back and forth they would write to each other until a design was settled upon, and the architectural plans were drafted up. Barber would send these finished plans on to his clients, so they could be used by a local builder or carpenter, to erect the home at the client’s homesite.
These design modifications were intentional as Mr. Barber wanted each and every one of his clients to experience the true professional services of a real architect, even though they have been located thousands of miles away from each other. Barber felt that through his customization of each design, he was quelling his critics that claimed he merely peddled stock plans for multiple clients, regardless of their site location, climate, or other factors that contribute to a successful design.

Brown acquired access to Barber's 1894 catalog, New Model Dwellings and How Best to Build Them. Whether Brown ever engaged in an extended correspondence with Barber has been lost to history.
In the introduction to the catalog, Barber offered advice on home value and construction cost.
"If you want to get a good house, plan for what you want, and then pay for having it done right; do not cut it down until you have spoiled the entire plan in order to save a few dollars. Your house will never change for the better, while your means will increase with time."

Brown chose Design No. 22 for his new home. According to the catalog, Brown would have paid $24.50 for the plans, with bill of materials and for the blue prints. The estimated cost for building this home was between $1300 and $1600. The home that local lumberman T. B. Wadley erected remains very clos to the design published in the book. A closet was added in the kitchen, no bath was built on the second floor, and only the closet off the master bedroom was built. The most significant change was the addition of three fireplaces in a triangular pattern, feeding into one chimney--one in the parlor, a second in the dining room and the third in the living room, each with a different decorative mantel. Everything else remained the same, from the sliding pocket doors between the dining and living rooms and the half moon art glass window in the vestibule. Completed in 1899, the family moved into the house the following year. Taylor Brown's elegant and compact folk Victorian home was the talk of Midland at the beginning of the twentieth century.