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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Clemuel Ricketts Mansion/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 11:24, 22 May 2010 [1].

Clemuel Ricketts Mansion

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Clemuel Ricketts Mansion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Clemuel Ricketts Mansion, mostly known today as the Stone House, was built in 1852 as a hunting lodge and tavern, served as part of a hotel, and as the home of a lumber baron, whom Ricketts Glen State Park is named for (the only places where he did not cut the trees were around the house and the park). The house was included in the Historic American Buildings Surveyin 1936, has been part of a private real estate development since 1957, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. This article uses the FA on Joseph Priestley House as a model, and I believe it meets all of the FAC criteria. I want to thank Dincher and Niagara for their helpful peer review comments, Jezhotwells for the GA review, Ben Kouba on Flickr and User:Stone House on Commons for photos, and the gracious and anonymous person(s) who allowed me to see the house recently. It is a beautiful and historic house and I hope this article does it justice. Thanks in advance for any feedback, which I will do my best to respond to quickly, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. This is only the article on all of the English Wikipedia with "Clemuel" in its title. Really. ;-)

  • Support. An excellent article, professionally written and illustrated; I especially like the lead image and the panorama. I'm happy to support, but I have a short list of minor suggestions, as follows:
Lead
"The 1852 mansion is a two and a half story L-shaped structure with stone walls 2 feet (0.6 m) thick." - I would hyphenate "two-and-a-half-story" or recast as "The 1852 mansion is an L-shaped structure, two-and-a-half stories high, with stone walls 2 feet (0.6 m) thick."
"In 1913 a two and a half story... ". - Hyphens here too.
"The lake, surrounding land, and house were purchased by a group of investors in 1957, and became a private housing development." - Would active voice be better? Maybe "A group of investors bought the lake, surrounding land, and house in 1957 and developed them privately for housing and recreation"?
Thanks, I have adopted all of your suggestions here. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Location
Would it be useful to add here that glaciers carved the lake? I didn't think of this until seeing the aerial view of the lake, which looks much like the Finger Lakes of New York.
I agree it looks very glacial - thanks for the observation. I will have to check on this - the source used here on geology mentions glacial striations on the lake shore, but does not say what created Ganoga Lake (it does say it existed before the most recent glaciation). Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Just curious. I am learning Pennsylvania geology by reading your articles. Finetooth (talk) 01:21, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did some digging and found that the lake is in a shallow valley and was formed by a dam of glacial till at the southeast end - added a sentence on this and a ref here, and at the Ganoga Lake article (which is an FA). Thanks for getting this in there - will also look at a copy of the "Geology of Pennyslvania" when I am next in a library that has it. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 05:18, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cool! Curiosity satisfied. Finetooth (talk) 17:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I checked the book "The Geology of Pennsylvania" but it did not list Ganoga Lake in its index. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"The rocks underlying the house and lake are gray sandstone with conglomerates and some siltstone, from the Mississippian Pocono Formation, and formed more than 340 million years ago." - Repetition of "Formation", ::formed". Also, active voice here too? Maybe "Rocks—gray sandstone with conglomerates and some siltstone—of the Mississippian Pocono Formation, more than 340 million years old, underlie the house and lake"? I'm assuming that all the rocks are from the same formation.
Thanks, used your wording. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Architecture
I think north–south takes an en dash rather than a hyphen.
"First floor plan... ". I'd hyphenate "first-floor" in the caption to eliminate ambiguity (plan for the first floor rather than first plan as distinct from subsequent plans).
"a large enclosed one story porch on the north and east sides" - I'd hyphenate "one-story".
"and two servants room and a bath in the finished attic" - Should that be "and two servant rooms and a bath in the finished attic"?
I made all of your suggested changes, thanks. I also changed the hyphens in east-west to n-dashes. Thanks, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
References
Citation 2 says in part, "For example, Clemuel is listed as R.B. Ricketts father (instead of his uncle),... " - Make this possessive, "R.B. Ricketts' father"? Maybe a semicolon instead of a comma after "uncle"?
Yet another good catch, thanks. There were two commas in the note, so I made each a semicolon, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Finetooth (talk) 23:03, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for your support, edits, kind words, and helpful suggestions, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your rapid response. I struck all but the glacier question, which I leave temporarily open out of curiosity. Finetooth (talk) 01:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review: I'm slightly puzzled by the note attached to Ref 2 (McDonald), which as worded carries an implication that the source might be less than accurate in some respects. Is this the intended meaning?

Otherwise, all sources look OK, no other issues. Brianboulton (talk) 20:41, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for your review. The short answer is that I was pointing out discrepancies in what appears to be an otherwise reliable source (these are the only such problems I found with it). The long answer is that calling Clemuel his father seems to just be a mistake, as does the number of dormers (though there are three dormers on the front of the 1913 wing, so I can understand the mix-up). All sources agree the hotel closed in 1903, and that the house became the family's summer home then. In some ways it makes more sense that the wooden addition was not torn down until 1903 as the NRHPO form says (the house is large, but the wooden addition was huge and much more suited to housing lots of guests). However, since two sources out of three said the wooden addition was torn down in 1897, I used that date, but reported the other year in the note. I can remove the note if you think it better. I just wanted to let someone who read the NRHP form know there are some minor issues with it. I used the NRHP ref once for a quotation in the lead, once in the history section for more recent material only it covers, and mostly for the architecture section. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is a very minor issue. A suggestion: you could soften the wording of the note slightly, removing the "for example" which implies the existence of other discrepancies. Perhaps something like: "In this account Clemuel is mistakenly listed as R.B. Ricketts' father (instead of his uncle); the date for razing the wooden addition used for the North Mountain House hotel is given as 1903 rather than 1897 as stated in sources such as William Reynold's Ricketts' history for the Historic American Buildings Survey, or Petrillo's book; three dormers are recorded as added to the west side of the house, when the drawings and photos show four." Your call, no quibbles from me. Brianboulton (talk) 11:31, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for bringing this up. On further consideration, the article does not note that W.R. Ricketts' HABS history has several odd spellings such as "Clemel" for "Clemuel", or that Petrillo's book has some errors (unrelated to this, but he puts the lumber ghost town of Masten, Pennsylvania in the wrong county and has Loyalsock Creek flow the wrong way at Lopez). I changed the McDonald source note to a general note in the text after the hotel closed in 1903, that now reads "All sources agree that the North Mountain House hotel closed in 1903, but differ on the date that the wooden addition used for the hotel was torn down. William Reynold's Ricketts' history for the HABS and Petrillo's book both report it was razed in 1897,[1][2] while McDonald's NRHP nomination form gives the year as 1903.[3]". I think this is more neutral and hope it reads better. Thanks again, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:43, 19 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note I am experiencing computer issues at home and may not be able to get online this weekend (from about 7 hours from now until Monday morning). Sorry, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 13:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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