Benjamin L. & Lillian Driffill House, 2605 17th Avenue
Most Significant Unprotected Structures:
High-style Colonial Revival structure of the 1920s
Architectural Style:
Colonial Revival
Construction Date:
1923
Architect/Builder: Unknown
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City directories indicate the first resident of this house was Frank Perkins, but within one year it was purchased by Benjamin L. and Lillian Driffill, who would live here until about 1946. Ben Driffill was known throughout the community for the meticulous care of his lawn. In 1943, Argus columnist George Wickstrom said: “The shimmer of green, that 100-by-125 foot area of luxuriant turf is one of the show places of our town.” The lawn was a mixture of creeping bent grass, which is often used on golf course greens, and blue grass. Ben Driffill and his father-in-law, William McCrellias, were known to tend the lawn for hours. The Driffill family has a long and intertwined printing history in Rock Island and Davenport, going back as early as the 1870s to the Rock Island Union newspaper and Louis Benjamin Driffle. By the 1920s, Benjamin L. Driffill had become the president of Driffill Printing Company, which did a considerable amount of local contract printing for educational books and pamphlets, including some for John H. Hauberg, Henry W. Horst, Palmer College of Chiropractic, and the Rock Island Arsenal.
This side-gabled Colonial Revival house is a fairly accurate interpretation of a true Colonial house. However, differences are seen in the triple windows and the modified hip-roof canopy above the first floor windows and entrance. Some of the exquisite detailing on this house includes the triple dormers topped with modillions and pediments, the modillions and dentils trimming fascia boards, the end chimney and the Ionic capitals on the porch columns. Uncommon features of the home are the two story pilasters that frame the front facade. This home still has wooden storm windows and some wooden storm doors. Side porches are common on Colonial Revival houses. The narrow porch windows match some windows on the front facade.
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