The Clapp House is located on the north side of Spring Street in
Downtown Portland, behind the main bulk of the
Portland Museum of Art (PMA) and immediately adjacent to the
McLellan-Sweat Mansion, a
National Historic Landmark that is also part of the museum complex. The house is two stories tall, with brick walls set on a raised granite foundation, and capped by a wood-frame
gabled roof. Its front facade faces south, and is divided into three bays, with fluted
Ionic columns at the outside and fluted Ionic
pilasters framing the center bay. The center bay has a large sash window on the first floor, set in a recessed rectangular panel, with a smaller three-part window on the second floor characterized by its flanking oval windows with elaborately carved surrounds. The side elevations each have a recessed porch supported by three Ionic columns, with colored tile floors laid in geometric patterns. Each porch is accessed via a separate granite stair leading to it on the main facade. The house was built in 1832, and was probably designed by
Charles Q. Clapp, its first owner. Clapp was the son of
Asa Clapp, who was one of Portland's wealthiest businessmen. Charles was engaged in real estate development in the city. Some of the designs on the inside and outside of the house are traceable to popular works describing Greek Revival style, including
Asher Benjamin's
The Practical House Carpenter and Edward Shaw's
Civil Architecture. In addition to this house, Clapp is credited with making Greek Revival alterations to the McLellan-Sweat Mansion (which he lived in during the 1820s), and for construction of the
Charles Q. Clapp Block, one of Portland's oldest surviving commercial buildings. ==See also==