Elbert-Bates House

Albia, United States

Exterior only

Visible from the street; the inside is private.

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Heritage registerNational Register of Historic Places↗

The Elbert-Bates House is a vernacular Italianate residence in Albia, Iowa, built between 1873 and 1875 for Benjamin F. Elbert, a cashier and board member of the First National Bank who later became a successful businessman in Des Moines. The house is one of four large brick structures in Albia known as the Four Sisters, distinguished by their unusual running brick bonding—an uncommon feature for southern Iowa at the time, suggesting a shared architect and mason, possibly Charles A. Dunham of Burlington. In 1917–1918, subsequent owner David W. Bates, a local attorney and banker who later served as Iowa State Superintendent of Banking, commissioned a two-story Prairie Style-influenced solarium on the rear and removed the deteriorated wooden front porch. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, the house exemplifies early Italianate architecture in the region.