Cornish, Joel N., House

About this property

The Joel N. Cornish House is located in South Omaha, Nebraska. The 1886 construction is considered an "excellent example of the French Second Empire style." The house was converted into apartments after the Cornish family moved out in 1911. The house is a three-story mansion with a full basement with an addition constructed in 1911. The wooden roof consists of tongue and groove joint construction, with the floor made of mosaic tile. A broad central concrete stairway leads up to the front doors, and the exterior walls are load-bearing brick. The brick walls of the addition are broken up by small, evenly spaced, double hung windows in vertically parallel rows. The foundation is also brick, in places faced with rough-hewn sandstone blocks. Two notable features of the house are the porches. The porch on the east facade is supported by triple wooden corner columns. The wooden porch on the south facade has been established as an original part of the building by a family photograph. Its ornate carving embellishes the tongue and groove joint construction in the floor and ceiling. French doors provided access to the house. The slate mansard roof, with arched dormer windows is accentuated by cornices at its base and top. The slates are several different patterns set in rows of three; the central east facade of the roof is crowned by a wooden cupola with windows and a spire. Double-hung arched windows are arranged in horizontally and vertically parallel double rows equally spaced around the house. Two porches rise the entire height of the rectangular, three-story addition to the original house. Several alterations have altered the original appearance of the exterior. Some of the changes include the removal of a wrought iron fence crowning the entire roof and the small roof of the cupola. A small balustrade that was once located above the east porch between the two bay windows of the second floor was removed, as well. Several onion-shaped ornaments no longer cap the dormer on the third story and the round windows in the roof of the cupola. Also, a small unornamented service porch on the south side of the southwest corner, has been removed, although the door still remains. In the late 1800s, the original "Gold Coast" area of Omaha lay south of the business district, roughly from Pierce to Dorcas between 8th & 11th Streets. Within the borders could be found the most elegant homes of many of Omaha's most successful citizens. Much of the land which had once belonged to the estate of Adolph Kountze and had been subdivided into the fashionable new Forrest Hills addition. It was here that Colonel Joel Northrop Cornish selected a site at 1404 South 10th Street for his home in Omaha. Colonel Cornish came to Omaha in 1886 from Hamburg, Iowa but he was an easterner by birth, and his new mansion was to reflect much of that taste.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Douglas County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Douglas County.

More historic places in Nebraska

Browse all historic places in Nebraska.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Nebraska history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.