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GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS  |  2020 – 2021 65 to appear downtown is the building that now houses the Emporium Wines & The Underdog Cafe and the apartments that sit above. Tax records reveal that this structure was in existence in 1854, and it is shown on one of the village’s earliest maps in 1855. It has tall, green brick pilasters on each side of a center entrance to the upstairs apartments. There is a cornice over each store- front and large windows on the front facade with flat soldier arches. “Although garishly painted and altered somewhat,” reads a cheeky entry in the Ohio Historic Inventory, or OHI, from 1979, “its historic ori- gins are obvious and it lends an aura of the past to the streetscape.” Another downtown structure that embodies the Greek Revival style, perhaps more prominently than the Emporium, is the tall apart- ment building at 139 Dayton St., across the street from the laundromat and next door to the Corner Cone. The building was built sometime in the 1850s or ’60s and was a part of the early streetscene of Yellow Springs. The portion of Dayton Street where the building rests was the earliest developed part of the village. The Greek Revivalist ele- ments of this building are perhaps most visible in the two-story, square pillars that protrude from the indented double gallery porch. The top of the building features cornices that jut inwards and a pedimented gable. The OHI entry for this building, again written in 1979, states that the building, which was then surrounded by a used car lot and other businesses, was “modernized within an inch of its life,” but that “its origi- nal dignity shines through.” Federal style Like Greek Revivalism, Federal-style architec- ture had a firm aesthetic foothold in the U.S. throughout the late 18th- and mid-19th centuries. Having evolved from the Georgian style of architec- ture, the Federal style is characterized by relatively simple modes of geometric expression. Federal build- ings are typically two sto- ries high, two rooms deep and adorned with plain columns and moldings. According to Rose, there is some difficulty in making the distinction between the Federal and Greek Revival styles in the village’s down- town buildings. This, he said, is simply because architec- tural styles evolve over time — they diverge, combine and change in often subtle ways, thereby making defini - tive classification anything but easy. “In some ways the Federal became the Greek Revival,” said Rose. “The massing and shape of the Federal Houses in Ohio in the 1830s and on local architecture Kevin Rose put it, the builders of the downtown structures, “some of whom were surely from the east,” likely brought their design concepts west when they settled in Yellow Springs. As a result, we can see four primary architectural styles in full flush in down - town Yellow Springs: Greek Revival, Federal, Victorian Italianate and vernacular. Greek Revival style According to Rose, who currently works as an histo- rian and director of revital- ization for the Springfield- based Turner Foundation, and who has occasionally led architectural tours around Yellow Springs and the sur- rounding area, the majority of buildings constructed in the village’s early years were designed in the Greek Revival style. But, he says, the downtown buildings vary from the style’s occasional grandiose ele- ments. They could “perhaps be more accurately described as ‘low-style’ Greek Revival,” said Rose. The buildings, he explained, have no large columns, minimal or no deco- rative panels and no large Greek entryways, although the latter two could have been removed over time. “The structures are simple in their expression of the Greek Revival style: bricks extended to mimic pilas- ters and simple six-over-six windows — very common for this period, as large sheets of glass were not easily made,” he said. Rose added that particular kinds of cornices — decora- tive molded projection at the top of a wall, window or construction — are also common within the Greek Revival tradition. Among one of the earliest Greek Revival structures PHOTO: ANTIOCHIANA, ANTIOCH COLLEGE 241 Xenia Ave., in 1973, when it contained a beauty shop, drug store and bicycle shop. It exemplifies the Federal architecture style. The stately brickwork, rigid geometry, joined chimneys and symmetry in its overall appearance all suggest a 19th-century aesthetic.