High Gate
Fairmont, West Virginia
High Gate (also known as the James Edwin Watson House or Ross Funeral Home)[1] is a historic residence located at 800 Fairmont Avenue in Fairmont, West Virginia.
The High Gate house and carriage house were built ca. 1910-1913 by Fairmont industrialist and financier, James E. Watson, son of the "father of the West Virginia coal industry," James O. Watson. Designed by Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer, the stable and the adjacent mansion remain fine example of Tudor revival architecture with half-timbering, stucco wall cladding and clay-tiled-roofs -- an academic style based upon late Medieval English prototypes that was common among suburban domestic architecture in the United States in the early-20th-Century.
Although still uncommon prior to World War I, Tudor Revival became an immensely popular style during the 1920s and 1930s. High Gate is clearly a product of the early infusion of the Tudor style, as well as the opulence of the wealthy of the early 20th-Century.