*This 1991 application described the property as it was at that time. Most of the imperfections mentioned were remedied during the subsequent restoration.

Called "Falcon Rest" by the Faulkners, the main house is an L-shaped two-story brick structure, with an attached one-story service area separated from the main house by a breezeway. The house became a hospital in the 1940s. A 2,200-square-foot rectangular concrete-block laundry building behind the main house, added for the hospital in the late 1940s, remains.* Several additions made to the original structure in the mid-1950s -- including a block of eight rooms in the center of the "L," a second story above the service area, and a massive concrete ramp which wrapped around the back section to the second floor -- have been removed by the previous or present owner.

All the exterior and interior walls of the main dwelling are three bricks thick and rest atop limestone foundations. It is interesting to note that the foundation under the front bay wall, though carved to look like individual stones, is actually one huge boulder. The bricks were originally unpainted, but the doctor who ran the hospital had the exterior walls painted with white sealer in an attempt to alleviate a moisture problem.

The house has a 12/12 pitch, multi-gabled roof and three chimneys. It originally had an internal gutter system. However, the gutters deteriorated and were covered with tin years back. The original roof was of wood shingles over oak decking, but that was covered long ago with asphalt shingles. A new asphalt shingle roof has recently been installed.

A "gingerbread" veranda with elaborately carved cedar posts and spindles wraps from the front around one side of the house. Lattice-work panels screen the opening between the porch and the ground. The eight-foot-tall, double-hung wood windows have limestone lintels and are capped by brick laid in a curved pattern. Much of the original window glass remains.

The front of the house (the north facade) faces Bluff Springs Road and Charles Creek, which in Faulkner's day was dammed to form a lake. At one side of the facade is a bay with three windows, topped by the original formed-metal roof. Above the front entrance are three windows with rounded tops, a style said to be favored by Faulkner and therefore repeated in many businesses in town over which he had influence. Details on the front of the house are emphasized with offset brick designs above the windows and in the two gables. At the gable points were mounted intricate gingerbread decorations, one of which is in place. Parts of the other are available for reassembly. Elegant, four-foot wooden attic vents are almost hidden by the gable gingerbread. They are repeated in the gables in the back of the house. An attic dormer with two double-hung windows rises from the center roof section. It is embellished with octagon-shaped wooden shingles. The original concrete sidewalk, running from Bluff Springs Road to the front entrance, has been restored. Stone steps rise to the porch.

The east facade, which serves as a second front, faces Faulkner Springs Road. The wrap-around porch continues along the length of the east side to the service area. The porch is punctuated at mid-length by a gabled entrance decorated with the same wooden shingles as the attic dormer. The careful attention to detail characteristic of the house is evident even in the basement and crawl-space windows. Though they are concealed from view by the lattice panels under the porch, these small windows are topped by the same rounded brick pattern as the exterior windows. A concrete ramp, built at the side entrance for the hospital, has been retained to provide handicapped access.

The south facade, or back of the house, is the old service area. Originally one story and attached to the house by a breezeway, the service area included a cook's room, a kitchen, and a pantry -- each with its own door opening onto the breezeway. Across another breezeway is a springhouse. Faulkner pumped spring water from the creek through the springhouse basement, where perishables were stored. Meat was evidently hung on exposed beams in the room above the basement, to take advantage of the cool air provided by the spring water. The cedar pipe which supplied water from the creek has been broken, but it is hoped that the cooling system can be restored. Several stone-covered clean-outs for the pipes which drained water from the basement back into the creek are located in the yard.

The west facade of the house features a downstairs veranda off the original dining room, and an upstairs balcony. They had been enclosed as halls for the hospital but were revealed when the eight-room addition was removed. Plaster (with a heavy proportion of concrete), applied at the time of the addition to cover the once-exterior walls, has been laboriously chipped off to reveal the original brick. All of the gingerbread on these porches has disappeared. According to a former resident, the decorations were simpler than those on the front porch. A staircase once connected the back porch with the balcony above it, but it was removed in the hospital renovation. It is probable that the upstairs balcony wrapped around the "L" of the structure at one time. However, at some point the section above the downstairs bath was enclosed. After the previous owner tore off the addition, he covered this area with boards. The forward west facade of the house is quite simple, broken only by two windows on each floor and supported by massive foundation stones.

Interior walls consist of an inch of plaster laid on the inside surface of the solid brick walls. All the plaster has been repaired. Steam pipes, once used for the central radiator heating system, are concealed at appropriate intervals within the walls. Picture molding is mounted on the walls about 20 inches below the 12-foot-high ceilings. The ceilings were originally plaster on lath, but they were badly deteriorated and have been covered with sheetrock. The walls and ceilings appear to have been papered when the house was built, but the doctor either removed, painted or plastered over most of the wallpaper. A few faded samples of the original wallcovering remain. Many of the ceilings were lowered to 10 feet for the hospital, and some of the 16-foot by 18-foot rooms were divided into several smaller rooms. These divisions have been taken out.

After closing the hospital, the doctor planned to tear down the house and sell the materials. Much of the woodwork was therefore removed. However, after a day of trying to dismantle the bricks, workmen told him the task was too difficult to carry out. Some of the woodwork remains, while much has disappeared. Door and window facings were mahogany, walnut, or cherry, carved in an unusual 12-groove pattern. The tops of each window and door and the bottoms of the doors were decorated with artfully carved end pieces. Carved baseboards were held in place with grooved footings, shaped into quarter-rounds on the outer edge. Together, the footings, baseboards, and molding which topped them were a foot deep. All floors are hardwood, with each room laid in a slightly different pattern. The solid wood, five-panel doors are 36 inches by 90 inches and capped by transoms. Door hardware is made of ornately stamped brass. The windows had interior shutters (all gone now) and interior screens, some of which remain.

Each room had a coal-burning fireplace, in addition to the steam heat, with the exception of the dining room and the servant's room above it. A separate chimney evidently provided ventilation for free-standing stoves in those rooms. The doctor sold most of the original mantles, which by all accounts were outstanding. Fireplace surrounds and hearths were laid in marble tiles. Enough of the tiles remained for the previous owner to re-tile four of the fireplaces. A chute for the coal is located in the basement under the original dining room.

The front door opens onto a 17-foot by 24-foot entrance hall, which is dominated by an intricately carved staircase. The six-foot-wide stairway rises from the center of the hallway, supported by carved wooden panels. The curved first step is flanked by square, carved newel posts, and two turned spindles support the bannisters on both sides of each step.

Eight doors open from the entrance hall. To the right is the parlor, distinctive for its bay wall and an elaborate 16-foot by 4-foot spindle frieze suspended from the ceiling in front of the bay.

A wainscoted bathroom, original to the house, opens from the rear of the entrance hall. Separate bedrooms for Clay Faulkner and wife Mary were located on opposite sides of the hall. Next to Mary's bedroom was the room entered from the "second front" door. She used it as a sitting room, where she received her children and other visitors. The back downstairs room in the main house was the dining room, which featured wainscoting and a built-in china cabinet.

Four bedrooms for the Faulkner children were located upstairs, with the hall between them large enough to serve as a schoolroom or playroom. Windows which formerly opened onto the upstairs porch extension (now a bath) have been cleverly converted to decorative niches by the previous owner. When the house was built, the back upstairs bedroom (above the dining room) could only be accessed from the balcony. It was occupied either by servants, a tutor, or a seamstress. Each of the bedrooms is said to have boasted an individual lavatory. Built-in closets were nestled in the spaces next to the protruding fireplaces, decorated with the same woodwork as the doors. Three of the bedrooms were carpeted by the previous owner, since the doctor had glued tile to the wood floors.

Walls in the back one-story service area are two bricks thick. The base of a water well is next to the steps at the east of this section. Woodwork in the cook's 8-foot by 16-foot bedroom was almost as elaborate as that in the house. Next to her room was the original kitchen. It was wainscoted and had a larger fireplace opening than the other rooms. Its chimney was removed when the second story was added over the service area for the hospital. A pass-thru window into the dining room across the breezeway made food service convenient. Next to the kitchen was a pantry -- the same size as the cook's room. The springhouse, under a common roof with the other service rooms, is located to their west across another breezeway.

As the Faulkner house had "all the conveniences of a model city dwelling," it was lit with electricity. Evidence of the knob-and-tube wiring is still present in the attic.

At one time, a carriage house was located at the back of the current lot near Faulkner Springs Road, but all physical evidence of the structure has disappeared. The concrete-block laundry building is a one-story, hip-roofed structure with a full loft/attic. The east side of the building houses a two-bedroom apartment. The other two-thirds of the structure are currently utilized for storage.* [Now converted to the "Victorian Carriage House" dining room.]

Ample parking space remains from hospital days. A paved drive approaches the house from Faulkner Springs Road. It widens to a parking area between the main house and the laundry building and up the east side of the house to the concrete ramp. An additional parking area stretches in front of the house. Concrete stanchions outline the perimeter of the parking areas. Square columns flank both sides of the driveway, front sidewalk, and front parking area. Granite signs engraved "Faulkner Springs Hospital and Sanitarium" are embedded in one column each at the side and front of the property.*

The majestic trees include beeches, pecans and maples. Daffodils which line the sidewalk, lilac and Japanese magnolia bushes, and an unruly privet hedge are the only remnants of the once-gracious landscaping.*