Our guide to architectural styles follows. Included are synonyms listed under “Also known as,” brief descriptions, and lists of common features. Sources refer to where some of this information is taken from and where additional information can be found.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Sprawling complexes intended as summer retreats in wilderness areas, with a rustic look, achieved through the use of stone, logs, and twigs used in their natural state. | |
| Great Camp | Decorative half-timbering
Bracket Intersecting gable Steep sloping roof Shed-roofed dormer Split shingles Shed roof Stucco Scroll-sawn rafter tail Corbeled log ends Six-over-six double hung sash Rustic-work railing (rough twigs) Rubblework chimney Saddle notch Recessed porch Paired windows Rubblework foundation Balcony Log siding Exposed rafter |
Sources: Carley, p. 170-174.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| In 1934 the architect Rudolph Shindler designed a modern weekend house for a client, Gisela Bennati, in Lake Arrowhead, California. A planned community, Lake Arrowhead required all new houses to be designed in the Norman Revival style. Schindler responded rather sarcastically with a design dominated by a “Norman” roof that fell from the ridge all the way to the ground. Challenged by a dubious jury, the architect countered with photographs of steep-roofed houses, and as none of the panelists had ever been to France, he handily won the argument. The result was the first A-frame built in America. True to the Modernist credo, Schindler sheathed the interior in one of the latest industrial products – plywood – and opened up the gable ends with large panes of glass. The open plan incorporated one large living/dining area and a built-in garage. | Steep pitched roof
Wood shingles Extended beams Hopper windows (pivot in) Terrace Rubblework masonry Soffit |
Sources: Vogeler.
Art Deco, 1925-1940
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Art Deco is characterized by a linear, hard edge or angular composition often with a vertical emphasis and highlighted with stylized decoration. The facades of buildings often are arranged in a series of set backs emphasizing the geometric form. Strips of windows with decorated spandrels add to the vertical feeling of the composition. Hard-edged low relief ornamentation is found around door and window openings, string courses and along the roof edges or parapet. Ornamental detailing often is executed in the same material as the building or in various metals, colored glazed bricks or mosaic tiles. Although straight-headed windows (metal sash or casement type) are more popular, an occasional circular window or rounded window and door jamb is found. | Two stories
Stucco walls Glass blocks Casement windows |
Sources: Blumenson, 77.
Art Deco, 1930-1945
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Art Deco is characterized by a linear, hard edge or angular composition often with a vertical emphasis and highlighted with stylized decoration. The facades of buildings often are arranged in a series of set backs emphasizing the geometric form. Strips of windows with decorated spandrels add to the vertical feeling of the composition. Hard-edged low relief ornamentation is found around door and window openings, string courses and along the roof edges or parapet. Ornamental detailing often is executed in the same material as the building or in various metals, colored glazed bricks or mosaic tiles. Although straight-headed windows (metal sash or casement type) are more popular, an occasional circular window or rounded window and door jamb is found. |
Sources: Blumenson, 79.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A modern style: streamlined stucco and chromium, as if buildings traveled at the speed of automobiles. Inspired by the Paris International Exposition of 1937. |
Sources: Willensky, 2000.
Also known as: Arts and Crafts Movement
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A philosophy of design stressing handicrafts and a return to preindustrial design. Popular in England in the late 19th century, it had some influence on the American Prairie and Craftsman styles. | Stone, exterior chimney
Small, high windows on each side of chimney Dormers, usually gabled or shed Triangular knee brace supports Sloped foundations Fieldstones Exposed roof beams and rafter tails or ends |
Sources: Foster, 2004.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Beaux Arts, 1890-1920
Also known as: Beaux Arts Classicism, Beaux-Arts Classicism, Beaux-Arts
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Beaux Arts Classicism is characterized by large and grandiose compositions with an exuberance of detail and variety of stone finished. Highlights of the style are projecting facades or pavilions with colossal columns often grouped in pairs, enriched moldings and free-standing statuary. Windows may be enframed by free-standing columns, balustraded sill, and pedimented entablature on top. Pronounced cornices and enriched entablatures are topped with a tall parapet, balustrade, or attic story. | Classical columns, one-story
Classical columns, two-story (colossal) Baskethandle arch |
Sources: Blumenson, 67.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The simple box-and-strip construction technique appeared in the Plains and in Texas in the late 1800s after milled lumber became available but was still expensive in some hard-to-reach areas. Requiring a minimum of wood, the building method involved nailing vertical boards to a bottom sill and top plate, then merely covering up the cracks with thin wood strips. The look was similar to board-and-batten siding, but the strips were wider and rougher, and there was no balloon frame for support underneath. | Wood strips
Vertical boards Brick chimney Boxed eaves Split wood shingles (shakes) Shed roof Rafter ends Porch Wood pier Paneled door Four-over-four double-hung sash |
Sources: Carley, p. 126.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The bold concrete architecture inspired by Le Corbusier’s work and his followers. Also, New Brutalism. |
Sources: Willensky, 2000.
Bungalow, 1890-1940
Also known as: Bungaloid, Bungalows, Bungalows and Small Houses, Craftsman, Craftsman Bungalow, Western Stick, The Western Stick Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The typical bungalow is a one-story house with gently pitched broad gables. A lower gable usually covers an open or screened porch and a larger gable covers the main portion of the house. In larger bungalows the gable is steeper, with intersecting cross gable or dormers. Rafters, ridge beams and purlins extend beyond the wall and roof. Chimneys are of rubble, cobblestone or rough-faced brick. Porch piers often are battered. Wood shingles are the favorite exterior finish although many use stucco or brick. Exposed structural members and trim work usually are painted but the shingles are left in a natural state or treated with earth-tone stains. Windows are either sash or casement with many lights or single panes of glass. Shingled porch railings often terminated with a flared base. The bungalow, like other simple but functional houses, was subject to variations such as the California, the Swiss, the Colonial, Tudor and others according to locale and fashions of the time. | 1-1/2 stories
long, rectangular volumes ridgepole perpendicular to the street small front porches Piers with slanted sides |
Sources: Blumenson, 71.
Cape Cod, 1700-present
Also known as: Cape Cod Cottage
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A one-and-a-half-story New England house, end-gabled with central chimney floor plan and steep roof, originally built in Massachusetts from 1700 on. Today, a small end-gabled house common in lower-cost housing developments, barely resembling the original. | 1 and ½ story
End-gabled |
Sources: Foster, 2004
Chateauesque, 1860-1890
Also known as: Chateau
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Chateau style is massive and irregular in silhouette. It is characterized by steeply pitched hip or gable roofs with dormers, towers, and tall elaborately decorated chimneys with corbelled caps. Croisettes or cross windows are paired and divided by a mullion and a transom bar. The basket-handle arch, similar to a Tudor arch without a point, also is used for windows. At times Renaissance elements such as semi-circular arches or pilasters are mixed with hood molds, Tudor arches, stone window tracery, and finials of the Gothic style. | Baskethandle arch
Ogee arch Gabled dormer Oriel window |
Sources: Blumenson, 51.
Also known as: Chicago Commercial, Chicago School
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The early modern style of Louis Sullivan, John Wellborn Root, William Le Baron Jenney, and company: birth-school of the skyscraper. |
Sources: Willensky, 2000
Colonial Revival, 1870-1920
Also known as: Georgian Revival
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Colonial Revival house is often a combination of various Colonial styles and contemporary elements. Generally the Revival house is larger than its Colonial counterpart and some of the individual elements are exaggerated or out of proportion with other parts of the house. Historical details such as an eighteenth century swan’s neck pediment or Flemish brick bond may be found on a house with large single-light window sash, stained glass, late nineteenth century bevel siding or large entry porches or porticos. Some Revival houses, however, are executed with such historical accuracy that they are difficult to distinguish from original houses. | Classical columns, one-story
Segmental arch Shed dormer Gabled dormer |
| Estate House | Pitched roof
Gable Brick roundel Flanker (dependency) Twelve-over-twelve double-hung sash Portico Hyphen Gallery Semicircular oriel |
| Estate House | Pitched roof
Intersecting gable Wood shingles Paneled shutter Clapboards Eight-over-twelve double-hung sash Segmented pediment Trellis Overhang (jetty) |
Sources: Blumenson, 25; McAlester; Carley, 188-192.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Two Story House
Natives of the West Indies – many immigrating to America to work in Florida’s cigar industry – brought the Conch house to Miami and Key West in the late 19th century. (Native Bahamians were colloquially called “Conchs” at that time.) This simple one- or two-story building form was raised on piers and featured a porch or two-story gallery, often decorated with gingerbread trim, to catch cool breezes. The earliest examples are said to have been crafted by ships’ carpenters using a cross-braced timber system based on shipbuilding techniques, but the vast majority are actually balloon frame structures sheathed with clapboards. |
Two stories
Pitched roof Louvered vent Gable Two-over-two double-hung sash Brick pier Louvered shutter Clapboards Plate glass Transom Scroll-sawn gingerbread railing Cornice |
| One Story House | One story
Split wood shingles Pitched roof Clapboards Fascia board Picket Cement-over-stone foundation Louvered shutter Stone pier Cornice |
Sources: Carley, p. 117.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The connected farm – a rambling complex of attached houses, barns, and animal sheds – is indigenous to northern New England. The supplementary buildings were usually added one by one over time, often as frugal Yankee farmers moved older, obsolete outbuildings from elsewhere on their property closer to the main house for reuse. While the frigid winters of the region might explain this folk type, connected farms were not common until the mid-1800s and never appeared in other regions of the country that get just as cold as the Northeast. Rather, the connected farm probably developed in response to economic needs. As the 19th century progressed, the poor New England soil couldn’t support the more progressive, large-scale family farms with cottage industries, such as needlecrafts and canning, and adopted a convenient arrangement of buildings to serve agriculture and home industry under the same roof. | Shingle siding
Shed roof Split wood shingles Pitched roof Gable Eaves Wood sill Fascia board Sidelight Two-over-two double-hung sash Clapboards (weatherboarding) Hanging sliders Barn Rubblework foundation |
Sources: Carley, p. 110-111.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The term “Cracker” is thought to have originated in southern Georgia, where cracked corn was a dietary staple, but it also refers to whip-cracking cattle drivers who made their way across the Florida border in the 1800s. Many so-called Cracker houses, found primarily in central Florida and the panhandle, were log cabins of the standard single- or double-pen, saddlebag, or dogtrot types adapted to a semi-tropical climate. A large, cool porch invariably surrounded the house, which was raised off the damp ground on rot-resistant piers of cypress, heart pine, or limestone. Chimneys were made of sticks where stones were scarce, and the kitchen was often in a separate building. The more substantial “four-square” house, of balloon frame construction, featured ample front and back porches and a hipped roof covered in tin to deflect sun. A cupola provided natural air conditioning; as warm air rose out of louvered vents, cool air was drawn in through open windows and doors. | Square-hewn logs (split boards nailed over cracks)
Tie bar Projecting eaves Purlin Rafter Porch Log joist Stick-and-mud chimney Corner board Round logs Kitchen Split wood shingles |
Sources: Carley, p. 112-113.
Also known as: Craftsman Style.
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A popular American style in the early 20th century exemplified by wide eaves, exposed rafter and beam ends, large porches, and the use of rustic materials. | Heavy squared piers
Flared eave Shed dormer Gabled dormer |
Sources: Foster, 2004; McAlester.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Originally a person of European ancestry born in the West Indies or Louisiana during the French Colonial period. Soon expanded to include the descendants of French soldiers and African-West Indian women. Finally, it came to distinguish one likely to be of mixed racial and cultural background who, unlike strangers and foreigners, spoke the Creole language and was well acclimated to the complex culture and difficult environment of the New Orleans area. |
Sources: Foster, 2004.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Dutch Colonial, 1700-1830
Also known as: Dutch
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The early eighteenth century Dutch Colonial house built in brick or stone was covered by a steeply pitched gable roof. The straight-sided gables were finished with parapets raised on elbows. The most noticeable feature of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Dutch Colonial house is the gambrel roof. The lower slope of the roof often flared beyond the front and rear of the houses forming a deep overhang. | Flared eave
Shed dormer Casement window |
Sources: Blumenson, 17.
Also known as: Jeffersonian, Jeffersonian Classicism, Roman Republican, Roman Revival, Roman Villa, Monumental Classicism, Regency
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Classical columns, one-story
Classical columns, two-story (colossal) Full-height entry porch (commonly with pediment) |
Sources: McAlester.
Also known as: Early New England Colonial, Early Southern Colonial
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Establishing their first settlements in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, some half a million colonists had emigrated to America from England, Scotland, and Ireland by the end of the 17th century. With them came a thoroughly British pattern of social and cultural values that soon traversed the Atlantic seaboard. Building characteristics varied from colony to colony and town to town. However, a broad distinction can be drawn between the New England village, which comprised individual houses grouped around a town green, and the isolated southern plantation, a self-sufficient enterprise supported by slave labor and complete with a forge, carpentry shop, and perhaps a brickyard. New England settlers were primarily middle-class yeoman families. Most came from a single area of England (East Anglia), and they continued a well-entrenched tradition of heavy timber-framed buildings. Settlers of the Virginia tidewater region and farther south came from more diverse areas and included a significant number of bricklayers and masons. Lime, used for mortar, was also readily available in the South, so masonry construction was more typical. Until about 1700, all early English Colonial houses shared a distinct postmedieval character, most noticeable in steep pitched roofs (a holdover originally designed to support thatch), immense stacked chimneys, and small casement windows. The plan was typically a one-room, all-purpose “fireroom,” or “hall,” used for cooking, eating, and sleeping, or a two-room layout with a central chimney dividing the hall and parlor or kitchen. Additional sleeping chambers were located above. | |
| Village House (New England)
A mark of late Elizabethan architecture, the overhang, or jetty, was a feature of early Colonial houses throughout the 1600s, primarily in towns and cities. In England it may have been used to provide shelter over street-level market stalls, but in America the shallower overhang – four to six inches deep – was apparently a purely decorative holdover. |
Intersecting gable
Valley Rubblework chimney Chimney cap Split shingles (shakes) of pine, hemlock, cedar, or oak Steep pitched roof Gable Overhang (jetty) Rubblework foundation Divided door Porch Riven clapboards (weatherboarding) of cedar, oak, or white pine |
| Saltbox (New England) | Saltbox roof
Gable Chimney cap Rubblework chimney Riven clapboards (weatherboarding) Vertical plank door Overhang (jetty) Rear lean-to |
| Stone-Ender (Rhode Island) | Saltbox roof
Chimney cap Stacked chimney Ridge Valley Intersecting gable Projecting eaves Vertical plank door Pegged window frame Riven clapboards (weatherboarding) Rubblework masonry |
| Plantation House (Southern Tidewater) | Steep pitched roof
Chimney cap Riven clapboards (weatherboarding) Dormer Projecting eaves Flat (gauged) arch Divided door Brick relieving arch (segmented) Rowlock course (row of bricks laid end out) Gable |
| Plantation Houses (Mid-Atlantic) | Inset double arches
Intersecting gable Overhang (jetty) Valley Ridge course Gable Split wood shingles (shakes) Riven clapboards (weatherboarding) Six-over-six double-hung sash Pegged window frame Porch Scrolled doorhead Turned spindle |
| Plantation Houses (South) | Chimney viewer
Diagonally set chimney stack Linked chimney caps Rowlock course (row of bricks laid end out) Steeply-pitched hipped roof Corbeled cornice Flat (gauged) arch Brick relieving arch (segmented) |
Sources: Carley, p. 62-75.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| In the middle 1680s isolated early Georgian buildings appeared in Boston and Philadelphia. |
Sources: Roth
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Mandan Earth Lodge (Great Plains) | Mud plaster
Smoke hole Entrance roof Willow stick Center post (four used) Roof pole Stringer Sunken floor Fire ring |
| Thompson Pit House (Northwestern Plateau) | Pine needle, grass, and earth covering
Notched log ladder (tilted to east) Smoke hole Stringer Stone fireplace slab (to protect ladder) |
| Navajo Hogans, Forked-Pole Hogan (Southwest) | Four forked posts (positioned in cardinal directions)
Mud plaster Smoke hole |
| Stacked-log Hogan (Six-sided) | Bark and mud plaster
Chimney pipe Bark chinking Vertical plank door Cribbed logs or railroad ties Saddle notch Smoke hole |
| Stone Hogan | Sod roof
Chimney pipe Vertical plank door Stone wall |
Sources: Carley, p. 22-25.
Eastern Stick, 1860-1890
Also known as: Eastern Stick Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The asymmetrical composition of the Eastern stick style is highlighted by functional-appearing decorative “stick work”. Steeply pitched gable roof, cross gables, towers and pointed dormers, and large verandas and porches are also characteristic. The resulting pattern of vertical, horizontal and diagonal boards applied over the horizontal siding becomes highly decorative. Oversized and unornamented structural corner posts, roof rafters, purlins, brackets, porch posts and railings complement the decorative “stick work”. Sash or casement-type windows have either single or multiple lights. | Stick work
Steeply pitched gable roof Cross gables Towers Pointed dormers Large verandas and porches Sash windows Casement windows |
Sources: Blumenson, p. 54-55.
Eastlake, 1870-1890
Also known as: The Eastlake Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Eastlake was a popular decorative style of ornamentation found on houses of various other styles, e.g. Victorian Gothic, Stick Style and Queen Anne. This decorative style is named for Charles Locke Eastlake (1833-1906), an English interior designer and critic of Gothic Revival style. Porch posts, railings, balusters and pendants were characterized by a massive and robust quality. These members were worked or turned on a mechanical lathe, giving the appearance of heavy legged furniture of the period. Large curved brackets, scrolls, and other stylized elements often are placed at every corner, turn or projection along the façade. Perforated gables and pediments, carved panels, and a profusion of spindles and lattice work found along porch eaves add to the complexity of the façade. These lighter elements combined with the heavier and oversized architectural members exaggerated the three-dimensional quality. |
Sources: Blumenson, 59.
Egyptian Revival, 1830-1850, 1920-1930
Also known as: Egyptian
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Egyptian Revival style is indentifiable by distinctive columns and smooth monolithic exterior finish. Characteristics are battered walls edged with roll or rope-like moldings, tall straight-headed windows with inclined jambs, and a deep cavetto or gorge-and roll cornice. Generally roofs are flat and a smooth wall finish provides a monumental effect reminiscent of pylons or gateways to Egyptian temples. The later examples of Egyptian Revival used a cement or smooth ashlar finish to cover large buildings such as theaters. |
Sources: Blumenson, 29.
Also known as: English Vernacular (Delaware. Pa.), English Vernacular (New York)
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Architectural styles borrowing elements from “exotic” cultures. The Egyptian Revival is probably the best known from this group. It is easily identified by massive columns that resemble a bundle of stalks tied together and bulging at the top. Moorish and Turkish architectural traditions also influenced design in America. | Ogee arch |
Sources: Phillips, 1994.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| North European architectural style prevalent in the first quarter of the twentieth century that did not treat buildings as purely functional, but also as exciting sculptured objects in their own right, eg. Gaudi in Spain, Klint in Denmark, Poelzig and Mendelsohn in Germany. |
Sources: White & Robertson, 1991.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A distinctive addition to the 19th-century frontier landscape of Wisconsin and Texas, where Germanic settlers homesteaded, was the small farmhouse built of Fachwerk, or half-timbering. Fachwerk consisted of a braced timber frame, usually of white oak or cedar, set on a squared timber sill over a fieldstone foundation. The open framework was filled with an insulation of mud and straw, sandstone, or nogging (kiln-fired brick). A coat of adobe or lime plaster was often applied over the walls, but the Fachwerk might also be left exposed. | |
| Farmhouse (Wisconsin) | Pitched roof
Split wood shingles Ceiling joist Rubblework chimney Wood lintel Transom light Plate Shed roof Two-over-two double-hung sash Post Paneled door Transom Fieldstone foundation Sill Cross brace Plate glass Clapboards |
| Farmhouse (Texas) | Ribbed-tin roof
Shed roof Porch Gate Beveled cedar post Plate glass Two-over-two double-hung sash Adobe plaster over sandstone infill Paneled door Brick chimney Clapboards |
Sources: Carley, p. 124-125.
Federal, 1780-1820
Also known as: Adam, Adam Style, Adamesque, Adamesque Federalist, Federalist
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Federal style is typified by a low pitched roof, smooth façade, large glazed areas and elliptical fan light with flanking slender side lights. Geometric forms such as polygonal or bowed bays accentuate the rhythm of the exterior as well as indicate new interior spaces. Tripart windows often are framed in recessed arches. Ornamental elements found on many of the houses during this period herald the work of the English designers, the Adam brothers. | Classical columns, one-story
Segmental arch Gabled door |
Sources: Blumenson, 21.
Also known as: National, Pre-Railroad
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Log walls |
Sources: McAlester
Folk Victorian, 1870-1910, 1860-1885
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| An architectural style characterized by overall simplicity of form. Decorative treatment is usually confined to porch trim, gable trim, and brackets under the eaves. | Turned spindles
Porch on three or more sides (verandah) Full-height entry porch commonly with pediment, two tier) |
Sources: Phillips, 1994; McAlester.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Emphasis on highly structured visual relationships rather than subject matter, symbolism, theme, or ornamentation. |
Sources: About.com.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources: Roth.
French Colonial, 1700-1830
Also known as: French, French Colonial (Mississippi Valley)
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Early French settlers of the eighteenth century built structures of a half-timber frame method called post on sill or poteaux-sur-sole. The spaces between the vertical posts were filled with clay and rubble stone or sometimes bricks. The lower slope of the pavilion-type roof projects well beyond the walls, forming a cover for the porch or galerie. French-type double casement windows are hinged at the sides or jambs and latch at the center. In French plantation houses of the early nineteenth century, the main floor is raised and encircled by a covered galerie. An exterior staircase provides access to the main living quarters. | Flared eave
Porch on three or more sides (verandah) |
Sources: Blumenson, 15.
Also known as: French, French Colonial (Mississippi Valley)
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Flared eave
Hipped dormer Gabled dormer |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The picturesque French Revival incorporated stylistic features from a broad period of French architecture spanning several centuries, but found its essence in the landed country estates of Brittany and Normandy. The most distinctive identifying features are the steeply pitched hipped pavilion roof, conical tower, and French doors. This popular style, lasting well into the 1940s, was used for high-style country estates and smaller suburban houses throughout America. | |
| Suburban House | Steep hipped pavilion roof
Shed-roofed dormer Modillion course Stucco Built-in garage Forecourt Paneled door Nine-over-six double-hung sash Louvered shutter Casement Tie-rod Slate shingles |
| Estate House | Steep hipped pavilion roof
Round dormer Tall chimney Wood shingles Carved spandrel Loggia Garland swag Treillages Louvered shutter Pedestal Stucco over brick Cornice |
| Stable
It was not unusual for a stable on a turn-of-the-century country estate to be larger than a typical suburban house. The main floor of this French-inspired design accommodated several carriages and horses; a second story contained rooms for male stable hands and house servants. |
Conical roof
Rubblestone chimney Broken gable Knees Half-timbering Wood shingles Porte cochere Nine-over-nine double-hung sash Tower Rubblework masonry Ribbon windows Cupola Weathervane |
Sources: Carley,
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| · | |
| · Seminole Chickee (Florida) | Crossed-pole thatch weights
Palmetto thatch Half-log platform (palmetto, palm, or cypress) Stilt Crosstie Rafter poles Stringer Ridge pole |
| · Wattle-and-Daub House (Southeast) | Gable
Smoke hole Cane thatch (matting also used) Stringers Rafter King post Vertical support pole (dug into trench) Wattle (woven rods and twigs) |
| · Cherokee Log Cabin (Southeast) | Log roofing
Crossed rafters Gable Saddle notch Mud chinking |
| · Ojibwa Plank House (Great Lakes) | Bark roofing
Ridge pole Gable Vertical plank door Bracing pole |
| · Yurok Plank House (Northern California) | Gable
Extended rafter poles (willow or hazel) Round entry hole Plate beam Wall poles Threshold boulders |
| · Tlingit Plank House (Alaska) | Gable
Bear iconography Softwood plank siding over cedar log frame Vertical plank door |
Sources: Carley, p. 20-22.
Georgian, 1700-1800
Also known as: Georgian (Maryland, Virginia, Carolinas), Georgian (Middle Colonies), Georgian (New England)
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Georgian house is characterized by a formal arrangement of parts employing a symmetrical composition enriched with classical detail. The façade often is emphasized by a pedimented projecting pavilion with colossal pilasters or columns, and a Palladian or Venetian window. Sliding sash windows are common on houses of the eighteenth century. Each sash has several lights using as few as 6 or as many as 20 panes of glass in one sash. | Segmental arch
Gabled dormer |
Sources: Blumenson, 19.
Also known as: Colonial German, German, Swiss Colonial, German/Swiss Colonial
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Germanic housing in the colonies was typically well built and designed for efficiency. One of the earliest Germanic building types in Pennsylvania was the tripartite house, which reflected the Old World tradition of combining a house, a threshing area, and a stable under the same roof. For convenience, a springhouse was often incorporated directly into a dwelling, which might also include an attic meat-smoking room, or Rauchkammer, connected to the chimney stack. Particularly practical building types were the bank house and bank barn, built into a ground slope to provide cool lower-level storage rooms. The majority of early Germanic houses in America were simple, well-built log dwellings, although it is mostly the stone buildings that have survived. Stone, considered a status symbol, was favored primarily by the rural gentry. The typical Germanic plan was asymmetrical three-room layout, placing the kitchen (Kich, in Pennsylvania German) on the main level, usually to the right of the chimney. To the left was the stove room (Schtupp), with a sleeping chamber (Kammer) in the rear. By the mid-1700s, many Germanic settlers had adopted the Georgian center-hall plan. | |
| Tripartite House | |
| Log House | |
| Swiss Bank House
The Swiss bank house was typically built with the gable end set into the ground slope. The kitchen was located on the lower level, with a rear room dug into the earth. Many of the Swiss settlers were distillers and stored their brews in this cool space. |
Pitched roof
Nine-over-six double-hung sash Brick relieving arch (segmented) Divided door Exterior stone stair (Freitreppe) Ground slope Porch (Vorhuf) Gable |
| Springhouse Dwelling | Pitched roof
Ridge course Rubblework chimney Flared eaves Extended joist Divided door Porch (Vorhuf) Rubblework Door to springhouse Spring Whitewashed plaster over stone masonry Six-over-six double-hung sash Gable |
| Center-Hall House | Split shingles (shakes)
Gables Pent roof Boxed eaves Twelve-over-twelve double-hung sash Transom Exterior stone stair (Freitreppe) Paneled shutter Divided door Fieldstone (schist) Balcony Kick |
| Bake Oven
Few Germanic households were without a bake oven, often a separate out-building that might be incorporated into a larger smokehouse, washhouse, or summer kitchen. The outdoor oven was considered safer than its indoor counterpart, and its larger hearth permitted greater baking yields – as many as a dozen loaves of bread and even more pies at a time. The overhanging roof often shaded cooling shelves. |
Pitched roof
Brick chimney Oven belly Coursed stone masonry Oven door Post Brick masonry Strut |
| Bank Barn | Vertical plank barn siding
Rubblework masonry Ground slope Window grille Vent Split shingles Hanging slider Forebay overhang Divided door Segmented arch Eaves |
Sources: Carley, p. 40-51
Also known as: Gibbsian Georgian (Maryland, Virginia, Carolinas), Gibbsian Georgian (Middle Colonies), Gibbsian Georgian (New England)
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Gothic Revival, 1830-1860
Also known as: Gothic, Gothick
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The popular Gothic Revival style was used for everything from picturesque timber cottages to stone castles. Characteristics of the Gothic cottage and villa are steeply pitched roofs, wall dormers, polygonal chimney pots, hood molds over the windows and a curvilinear gingerbread trim along the eaves and gable edges. The stone castle version of the style included a large carriage porch entry, large pointed windows with tracery and colored glass, towers, and battlements. The standard for Gothic Revival windows was variety. Church and civic architecture adapted Gothic principles and forms with more academic correctness. The exterior of many buildings was finished with vertical planks and strips in the board and batten technique. | Chamfered porch support (corners shaved off at 45 degree angles)
Pointed arch Gabled dormer Oriel window |
Sources: Blumenson; McAlester.
Greek Revival, 1820-1860
Also known as: Greek
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Greek Revival style is an adaptation of the classic Greek temple front employing details of either the Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian order. The columns support a full entablature and a low pitch pediment. Also many houses were built without the colossal temple front. The rectangular transom over the door was popular and often was broken by two engaged piers flanked by side lights that surround the door. The shouldered architrave trim was widely used for doors and windows. Upper floor lighting is incorporated ingeniously into the enlarged frieze of the entablature. | Doric order
tall first floor windows pediment-shaped window head Classical columns, two-story (colossal) Full-façade porch Full-height entry porch (commonly with pediment) Porch on three or more sides (verandah) |
Sources: Blumenson, 27; McAlester.
Also known as: Victorian Gothic
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A period of design in Great Britain and the United States that emerged in the mid-19th century and lasted for several decades, emphasizing picturesqueness, variety, ruggedness and vigorous modification of historic details. |
Sources: Longstreth, 1987, 2000.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
International, 1920-1945
Also known as: International Style, Early Modern, Early Modernism, Mies, Miesian, Second Chicago School
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The International style is characterized by flat roof tops, smooth and uniform wall surface, large expanse of windows, and projecting or cantilevered balconies and upper floor. The complete absence of ornmanetation also is typical. The asymmetrically balanced composition is at times placed in a dramatic context or orientation with the landscape. Projecting eaves are closed or boxed and covered with the same finish as the wall surface. Roofs without eaves terminate flush with the plane of the wall. Wood and metal casement windows set flush to the wall as well as sliding windows are popular. A series of small rectangular windows often are placed high up along the wall surface forming a clerestory. Some permanently closed or fixed windows extend from floor to ceiling in a single pane creating large curtain-like walls of glass. Wooden trim is often painted or stained in earth tones to contrast with the white painted board siding or plastered surface. | Metal casement window |
Sources: Blumenson, 75.
Also known as: Italian Renaissance
| Description and Variations | Features |
| An architectural style characterized by: stone construction, low-pitched hip (or sometimes flat) roof with widely overhanging eaves supported by decorative brackets, ceramic tiled roof, round arches incorporated into doors and first story windows, and the frequent use of porticos or columned recessed entryways. | Classical columns, one-story
Round arch |
Sources: Phillips, 1994; McAlester.
Italian Villa, 1830-1880
Also known as: The Italian Villa Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The outstanding feature of the Italian Villa style is the combination of the tall tower with a two-story “L” or “T” shaped floor plan. The roof with projecting eaves has a gentle pitch resembling the pediment shape of classical temples. Other distinctive features are the grouping of either straight or round-headed windows into threes or small arcades, and the placement of porches or arcaded loggias between the tower and house or at the corners. A smooth stucco finish highlights the classic simplicity of the design while an exuberance of enriched ornamentation provides a baroque appearance. The overall composition is an asymmetrical balancing of classical forms intending a picturesque quality. |
Sources: Blumenson, 35.
Italianate, 1840-1880
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Italianate style is a rectangular (almost square), two or three-story house with very wide eaves usually supported by large brackets, tall thin first floor windows, and a low-pitch hip roof topped with a cupola. The formal balances of the house often is accentuated by pronounced moldings and details, such as string course and rusticated quoins. A central one-bay porch or long porches also are evident in the style. | Chamfered porch support (corners shaved off at 45 degree angles)
Segmental arch Baskethandle arch Round arch Full-width, one-story purch |
Sources: Blumenson, 37; McAlester.
Late English Gothic Vernacular
Also known as: Late English Gothic Vernacular (New England)
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as: Collegiate Gothic
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as: Log Buildings
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Although the Swedes were the first settlers to build log structures in America, the major tradition of log building here originated independently in the late 1600s to the early 1700s with German-speaking settlers in the mid-Atlantic region. From Pennsylvania and Virginia, the tradition of log building began spreading south and west with migrating Germans and Scots-Irish in the 1730s and reached its height during the period of frontier expansion from the mid-18th to mid-19th centuries. The basic log house form was the one-room, or single-pen, plan. The central-chimney “saddlebag” plan evolved when the single-pen house was enlarged by setting the gable end of a second log building against the chimney of the existing structure. An easier way to add on to a log house was to place a second cabin next to the first, gable to gable, and simply roof over the intervening space, producing the “dogtrot” (two pens and a passage) house. Pine and spruce were the preferred woods. | |
| Single-Pen Cabin | Pitched roof
Knee Butting pole Eaves beam Ceiling joist Floor joist Log step Sill Mud-and-grass chinking Round logs Chimney prop Stick-and-mud chimney Chimney plate Ridge pole Log rib Vertical planks |
| Saddleback Cabin | Split wood shingles
Rubblework chimney Mud-and-grass chinking Gate Stone step Vertical plank door Gable Pitched roof |
| Dogtrot Cabin | Split wood shingles
Loft Pitched roof Eaves beam Ceiling joists Mud-and-grass chinking Dogtrot (pass-through) Six-over-six double-hung sash Sill Gable Rubblework chimney |
| Nordic Log House
The square-hewn log house built by Nordic settlers, primarily in the upper Midwest, was characterized by a two-room plan, often with a third room added to make an I- or T-shaped layout. The door opened directly into the kitchen, an all-purpose room used for sleeping and daily work activities. The parlor was reserved for visitors. |
Split wood shingles
Rafter tail Two-over-two double-hung sash Vertical plank door Projecting eaves Eaves ladder Brick chimney |
Sources: Carley, p. 119-123.
Mission, 1890-1920
Also known as: Mediterranean Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, Spanish Mission, Spanish Revival, Spanish Territorial Architecture, The Mission Style, Mission Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Characteristic of the Mission style is simplicity of form. Round arches supported by piers punctuate stucco or plastered walls. Color and texture are provided in the broad red-tiled roof. Roof eaves with exposed rafters may extend well beyond the walls. At times the plain wall surface is continued upward forming a parapet. Towers, curvilinear gables and small balconies or balconets are used on large buildings. The only surface ornamentation is a plain string course that outlines arches, occasional gables and balconies. | Piers with slanted sides
Heavy squared piers |
Sources: Blumenson, 5.
Moderne, 1935-present
Also known as: Modern, Moderne, Modernistic, Streamline Moderne
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A modern style: streamlined stucco and chromium, as if buildings traveled at the speed of automobiles. Inspired by the Paris International Exposition of 1937. | Casement window |
Sources: Willensky, 2000; McAlester.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Most moderately priced housing built in the 1960s and 1970s was limited to the popular one-story and traditional styles of the postwar era. Among higher-end clients, however, architectural firms found an interest in sophisticated modern designs that continued to reinvent abstract, cubic architecture. In fresh interpretations, architects began to break the box with sculptural forms that had an almost machinelike clarity. Technology allowed increasing experimentation with shapes, scale, dimensions, and complex multi-level plans. | Casement window |
| Seaside House | Flat roof
Cylindrical stairwell Skylight Plate glass Plate-glass slider Pipe railing Cantilevered balcony Enclosed stair Cylindrical deck Cedar siding Recessed window |
| Seaside House | Flat roof
Concrete block Plate glass Recessed entry Paired chimney cylinders Roof terrace Sunshade |
| Solar House | Passive solar collector panel
Plate glass Clapboards Deck Concrete foundation Stilt Screened porch Deck Exposed rafters |
| Solar House | Pitched roof
Clerestory window Cedar siding Balcony Plate-glass slider Concrete foundation Deck Sliding sash Asphalt shingles Brick chimney |
| Vacation House | Broken gable
Clerestory window Shed roof Diagonal clapboards Plate-glass slider Plate glass Brick chimney |
Sources: Carley, p. 253-258.
Monterey, 1925-1955
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Partial porch (often inset in L, upper story) |
Sources: McAlester.
Native American, to ca. 1900
Also known as: Native American Dwellings
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Neoclassical, 1900-1920
Also known as: Neo-classicism
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Neo-Classicism is based on primarily the Greek and to a lesser extent the Roman architectural orders. IT is distinguished by symmetrically arranged buildings of monumental proportions finished with a smooth or polished stone surface. Colossal pedimented porticos may highlight the façade flanked by a series of colossal pilasters. When windows are employed they are large single-light sashes. Attic stories and parapets are popular but statuary along the roof lines is never employed. Since the Greek Orders are preferred, the arch is not often used and enriched moldings are rare. | Classical columns, one-story
Classical columns, two-story (colossal) Full-façade porch Full-height entry porch (commonly with pediment) |
Sources: Blumenson, 69; McAlester.
Also known as: The Neo-classical Revival
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Neoeclectic
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
New Brutalism
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A second coming, in the 1960s, of Brutalism. |
Sources: Willensky, 2000.
Also known as: The New Formalism
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Octagon, 1850-1860
Also known as: The Octagon, The Octagon Mode
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The octagon was an innovation in American domestic architecture. The concept of the centrally planned home was far advanced of the time. The ideal octagon was a two- to three-story house characterized by a raised basement, encircling verandas or porches, a cupola, belvedere or roof deck, and minimal ornamental detailings. According to Orson Fowler (1809-1887) the inventor of the octagon house, the beauty of the house rests with its forms, the economy of materials (concrete), the functional interior, and the splendid views offered by any one of eight exposures in addition to observations from the roof. Fowler conceived of the octagon house from rethinking the needs and requirements of the working class family. The octagon house was accepted across the country and adapted to various styles. | Full-width, one-story porch |
Sources: Blumenson, 49.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as: English, English Gothic, Elizabethan, Tudor, Jacobean, Jacobethan, New England, New England Colonial, Southern Colonial
| Description and Variations | Features |
| New England Colonial, 1600-1700
The New England house of the seventeenth century is characterized by a natural use of materials in a straightforward manner. The box-like appearance is relieved by a prominent chimney, a sparse distribution of small casement-type windows. The one-room house often was expanded by adding a room against the chimney end, forming a large house with a centrally located chimney. The well known “salt-box” shape house also provided rooms by extending the rear roof slope. Other useable space was made by placing windows in the gable end forming a half story. In larger houses the upper floor projected beyond the lower floors creating an overhand known as a jetty. Blumenson, 11. |
Casement window |
| Southern Colonial, 1600-1700
The Southern Colonial brick or timber frame house generally is narrow, only one room deep, and covered with a steeply pitched roof. Medieval characteristics such as curvilinear and steeped gables, massive chimneys, diagonal stacks, and a variety of brick bonds often are combined with classical elements, such as symmetrical arrangements of openings, modillioned cornices, and molded belt course. Blumenson, 13. |
Sources: Blumenson, 11-13.
Also known as: Post-Modern, Post-Modernism (Creative Eclecticism III)
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Postmodernism is a contextual architecture in which a house design is developed with specific regard to the site, the design of neighboring structures, and climatic conditions. Designs often draw on local building types, such as the Florida Cracker House as well as colonial architectural and American vernacular modes such as the Shingle and Stick styles. This interest coincided with a growing preservation movement in America, which gained momentum with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. In contrast to previous revival movements, Postmodernism has a sense of humor and an attitude – a certain chip on its shoulder that gives the style its edge. Turned out in Pompeiian colors, designs might make liberal use of such traditional Classical vocabulary as the pediment and Palladian window, but the familiar forms are deliberately exaggerated, overblown, flattened, or designed to look broken or eroded. This is a style of applied ornament in which decoration does not require a specific purpose. Designers have been criticized for rummaging among various styles and combining elements in an indiscriminate and superficial pastiche. At its best, however, Postmodernism is stark and original and represents a return to “humanized” design. The movement reached its height of popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. Its playful qualities made it particularly well suited to beach houses. | |
| Seaside House | Steep pitched roof
Weathered wood shingles Six-over-six double-hung sash Plate glass Mullion Half-round window Projecting eaves Fascia board Soffit Clerestory window |
| Country House | Hipped roof
Asphalt shingles Clerestory window Acroterion Soffit Plate glass Industrial steel stash Multipane door Plywood board-and-batten siding Projecting eaves Pipe chimney |
| Seaside House | Pitched roof
Stickwork Exposed rafter tails Two-over-two double-hung sash Clapboards Pilaster Plate glass Stickwork Globe finial Screened porch Pediment Fascia board Projecting eaves Cupola |
Sources: Carley, p. 259-263.
Prairie, 1900-1920
Also known as: Prairie School, Prairie Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Prairie style consists of a one- or two-story house built with brick or timber covered with stucco. The central portion rises slightly higher than the flanking wings. The eaves of the low-pitch roof extend well beyond the wall creating a definite horizontal and low to the ground quality. The large and very low chimney is found at the axis of the intersecting roof planes. Extending walls form the sides of terraces, balconies or delineate walks and entrances. Casement windows grouped into horizontal banks and sometimes continuing around corners emphasize the length of the house. The exterior walls are highlighted by dark wood strips against a lighter stucco finish or by a coping or ledge of smooth stucco along brick walls. | Piers with slanted sides
Heavy squared piers Flared eave Hipped dormer Casement window |
Sources: Blumenson, 73.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| After World War II, a severe housing shortage in America resulted in a market for pre-fabricated industrial homes that could be arranged in temporary settlements just outside of existing developments. Not only were these cheap, but they could also be put up miraculously fast. The parts of the steel-sheathed “Palace, for example, were transported by truck from factory to building site. Within three hours of delivery, claimed the advertisement, the house, complete with furniture, conventional plumbing, heating, wiring, and kitchen appliances was ready for two families. The prefab Quonset hut had few amenities and only a chemical toilet, but manufacturers claimed it was immune to sagging, warping, rotting, fire, and termites. | |
| Two-Family House | Flat roof
Projecting façade One-over-one double-hung sash Rib Brick veneer foundation Wood stoop Trellis |
| Quonset House | Domed roof
Asphalt-coated particleboard Louvered vent Ventilated air space Wood rafters Sunshade Lip Porch Steel sash Hopper window (pivots in) Asphalt-coated particleboard over self-supporting laminated wood arch |
| Dymaxion Deployment Unit | Zinc-oxide-coated galvanized steel sheeting
Adjustable translucent ventilator Ribs Domed roof Hood Airtight door Louvered vent Acrylic porthole Hood |
Sources: Carley, p. 231-235.
Also known as: Provincial Dutch Renaissance (New Netherlands)
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as: Provincial Jacobean (Virginia, Carolinas)
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as: Provincial Spanish Baroque (Southwest and Florida)
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Pueblo, 1905-1940
Also known as: Pueblo Style, The Pueblo Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Pueblo-style house is characterized by battered walls, rounded corners and flat roofs with projecting rounded roof beams or vigas. Straight-headed windows generally are set deep into the walls. Second and third floor levels are stepped or terraced, resembling the Indian habitats called pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. | Rough hewn porch support |
Sources: Blumenson, 7.
Also known as: Santa Fe Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A predominantly Southwestern architectural style characterized by: flat roofs with projecting rounded roof beams (called vegas); stucco covered battered walls with rounded corners; multi-paned, straight-headed windows set deeply into walls; and stepped or terraced upper stories. | Flat roof
Vigas Stucco covered battered walsl with rounded corners Multi-paned, straight-headed windows Stepped or terraced upper stories |
Sources: Phillips, 1994.
Queen Anne, 1880-1900
Also known as: The Queen Anne Style, Queen Anne Revival, Queen Anne-Eastlake
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Queen Anne
The Queen Anne style is a most varied and decoratively rich style. The asymmetrical composition consists of a variety of forms, textures, materials and colors. Architectural parts include towers, turrets, tall chimneys, projecting pavilions, porches, bays and encircling verandahs. The textured wall surfaces occasionally are complemented by colored glass panels in the windows. Elements and forms from many styles are manipulated into an exuberant visual display. |
Turned spindles (except free classic)
Gabled dormer Wrap porch |
| Queen Anne (free classic) | Classical columns, one-story
Gabled dormer Wrap porch |
Sources: Blumenson, 63; McAlester.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The ranch house was perhaps the ultimate symbol of the postwar American dream: a safe, affordable home promising efficiency and casual living. California architects introduced the “close-to-the-ground” ranch in the 1930s, evidently finding inspiration in the one-story plan of the Spanish rancho of the Southwest. By the late 1940s, this new house type had caught on across the country and still remains popular. With its open kitchen/living area, the ranch was specifically geared to casual entertaining. Another key selling point was the desirable indoor/outdoor living promised by the one-story layout, which featured sliding glass doors, picture windows, and terraces and patios secluded in a rear yard. “The ability to move in and out of your house freely, without the hindrance of steps,” boasted Sunset magazine’s 1946 edition of Western Ranch Houses, “is one of the things that makes living in it pleasant and informal. | Pitched roof
Concrete chimney Vertical siding Clapboards Brick veneer Recessed entry porch Paneled door Fixed multipane picture window Louvered shutter Six-over-six double-hung sash Projecting eaves Soffit Intersecting gable Weather vane Louvered vent Cupola Wood shingles |
Sources: Carley, p. 236-238.
Renaissance Revival, 1840-1890
Also known as: Renaissance, Romano-Tuscan Mode, North Italian Renaissance, Italian Renaissance, French Renaissance, Second Renaissance Revival, Renaissance Revival: The North Italian Mode, Renaissance Revival: The Romano-Tuscan Mode.
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Buildings in the Renaissance Revival style show a definite studied formalism. The tightly contained cube is a symmetrical composition of early sixteenth century Italian elements. Characteristics include finely cut ashlar that may be accentuated with rusticated quoins, architrave framed windows, and doors supporting entablatures or pediments. Each sash may have several lights or just one. A belt or string course may divide the ground or first floor from the upper floors. Smaller square windows indicate the top or upper story. |
Sources: Blumenson, 39.
Richardsonian Romanesque, 1870-1900
Also known as: Richardson Romanesque
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Richardsonian Romanesque houses, following the examples of H.H. Richardson (1838-1886), are characterized by a straightforward treatment of stone, broad roof planes and a select distribution of openings. The overall effect depends on mass, volume, and scale rather than enriched or decorative detailing. The uniform rock-faced exterior finish is highlighted with an occasional enrichment of foliated forms on capitals or belt course. The façade is punctuated with transomed windows set deeply into the wall and arranged in groups in a ribbon-like fashion. The large arched entry without columns or piers for support is the one most often used. Towers are short and chimneys are usually squat so as not to distract from the solid shape of the building. | Columns with cushion capital
Eyebrow dormer Round arch |
Sources: Blumenson, 47.
Romanesque, 1870-1900
Also known as: Romanesque Revival
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The monochromatic brick or stone Romanesque Revival building is highlighted by the semi-circular arch for window and door openings. The arch is used decoratively to enrich corbel tables along the eaves and belt or string courses making horizontal divisions. The archivolt or intrados of compound arches and the capitals of columns are carved with geometric medieval moldings. Facades are flanked by square or polygonal towers of differing heights and covered with various roof shapes. | Round arch |
Sources: Blumenson, 43.
Roman Classicism, 1790-1830
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Typical of Roman Classicism is the one-story Roman temple form employing variations of the Roman orders. The raised first floor is characteristic of design inspired by the proper Roman temple built on a platform or podium. The four-columned portico with pediment enclosing a lunette is one of the most often copied features in the Roman idiom which was popularized by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). Generally classical moldings are left plain without enrichment and painted white. |
Sources: Blumenson, 23.
Second Empire, 1860-1890
Also known as: Second Empire Baroque, The Second Empire Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Second Empire style house is an imposing two or three-story symmetrical square block with a projecting central pavilion often extending above the rest of the house. The distinguishing feature is the mansard roof covered with multi-colored slates or tinplates. Classical moldings and details such as quoins, cornices, and belt course have great depth and are dramatized by different textures and colored materials. Windows are arched and pedimented, sometimes in pairs with molded surrounds. Entrance doors often are arched double doors with glass upper panels. First floor windows are usually very tall. | 2 story
3 story Square block Symmetrical Projecting central pavilion Multi-colored slate Tinplates Classical moldings Quoins Cornices Belt course Arched windows Pedimented windows Arched double doors Glass upper panels Tall first floor windows Chamfered porch support (corners shaved off at 45 degree angles) |
Sources: Blumenson, 53.
Second Italian Renaissance Revival
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Second Renaissance Revival, 1890-1920
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Scale and size distinguish the later Revival from the earlier Renaissance Revival. Large buildings – usually three tall stories – are organized into distinct horizontal divisions by pronounced belt or string courses. Each floor is articulated differently. If the Doric Order or rustication is used on the first floor then the upper floor will be treated with a different order and finish. The window trim or surround also usually changes from floor to floor. Additional floors are seen in the small mezzanine or entresol windows. Arcades and arched openings often are seen in the same building with straight headed or pedimented openings. Enriched and projecting cornices are supported with large modillions or consoles. The roof often is highlighted with a balustrade. |
Sources: Blumenson, 41.
Also known as: Shingle Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Shingle style house, two or three stories tall, is typified by the uniform covering of wood shingles (unpainted) from roof to foundation walls. The sweep of the roof may continue to the first floor level proving cover for porches, or is steeply pitched and multi-planed. The eaves of the roof are close to the walls as not to distract from the homogeneous and monochromatic shingle covering. Casement and sash windows are generally small, may have many lights, and often are grouped into twos or threes. | Syrian arch
Eyebrow dormer Hipped dormer Gabled dormer |
Sources: Blumenson, 61.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| One room wide, the shotgun house featured a gable-end entry and consisted of two or three all-purpose rooms placed back to back. It was said that if a gun were fired through the front door, the shot would pass through all the rooms in a straight line and go right out the back door. A second story was often raised over the rear room. Associated primarily with New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and the rural South, the shotgun was used for workers’ and tenants’ housing, and by the 1920s was found as far afield as California and Chicago. The long, narrow house type is believed to have first come to America during the 19th century by way of free blacks migrating from Haiti to Louisiana, where it developed as an amalgam of African, French, and Arawak building traditions. | Pitched roof (ribbed tin)
Clapboards Porch Two-over-two double-hung sash Paneled door Brick pier Plate glass Porch Exposed rafter Shed roof Gable |
Sources: Carley, p. 116.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Prevalent from the mid-1800s into the 1900s, the sod house, or “soddie,” was a product of the Plains, where lumber and other building materials were scarce. A specially designed breaking, or “grasshopper,” plow allowed settlers to cut furrows without turning over and destroying the soil, producing foot-wide blocks of sod known as “Kansas brick” or, more optimistically, “Nebraska marble.” Blocks were laid with staggered joints, as bricks would be, with every third course (row) set crosswise and the chinks filled in with fine dirt; the interior might be plastered with clay. A twelve- by fourteen-foot house took about an acre of sod and a week to build. Although dirty and leak-prone, the sod, preferably tough buffalo grass, kept the interior warm in winter and cool in summer, withstood wind, and was also good, according to one early settler, for “stopping arrows and slowing bullets.” | Sod |
| Pitched-Roof House | Pitched roof
Wood lintel Sod roof Four-over-four double-hung sash Sod wall Rafter tail |
| Barrel-Roof House | Barrel roof
Lintel Sod Stone weight Two-over-two double-hung sash Cross batten Rafter end |
Sources: Carley, p. 118.
Spanish Colonial, 1600-1840
Also known as: Spanish
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The Spanish Colonial house in characterized as a low, long one-story building with a covered porch extending along the façade. Adobe bricks or stone were used for wall construction. The wall often was covered with a lime wash or plaster. Extending roof beams and porch posts were left round or roughly squared. By the early nineteenth century, many two-story houses were built with encircling porches and covered with wooden shingles. The rear of the house often faced an enclosed patio or garden. Churches or missions of Texas and the Southwest were vernacular interpretations of contemporary Mexican church building in the Baroque style. They were richly ornamented with churrigueresque-style decoration or simplified Renaissance-style detailing. |
Sources: Blumenson, 3.
Spanish Colonial Revival, 1915-1940
Also known as: Mediterranean Revival, Spanish Mission, Spanish Revival, Spanish Territorial Architecture, The Mission Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The unique feature of the Spanish Colonial Revival style is the ornate low-relief carvings highlighting arches, columns, window surrounds and cornices and parapets. Red-tiled hipped roofs and arcaded porches also are typical. Stone or brick exterior walls often are left exposed or finished in plaster or stucco. Windows can be either straight or arched. Iron window grilles and balconies also may be used. A molded or arcaded cornice highlights the eaves. The facades of large buildings often are enriched with curvilinear and decorated parapets, cornice window heads, and symbolic bell tower. |
Sources: Blumenson, 9.
Spanish Eclectic, 1915-1940
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Round arch
Casement window |
Sources: McAlester.
Stick
Also known as: Stick Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A style of wood construction that appeared after the Civil War, designed to suggest the wood framework beneath. Vertical, horizontal, and diagonal flat boards organize the exterior elevations by outlining panels of various siding textures. “Sticks” were also used to decorate gables, porch supports, and brackets. | Chamfered porch support (corners shaved off at 45 degree angles)
Flared eave Gabled dormer |
Sources: Foster, 2004; McAlester.
Suburban & Regional Eclecticism
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Sullivanesque, 1890-1920
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| An intricate weaving of linear and geometric forms with stylized foliage in a symmetrical pattern is the unique element of the Sullivanesque style, originated by Louis Sullivan (1856-1924). Bold geometric facades are pierced with either arched or lintel-type openings. The wall surface is highlighted with extensive low-relief sculptural ornamentation in terra cotta. Buildings often are topped with deep projecting eaves and flat roofs. The multi-story office complex is highly regimented into specific zones – ground story, intermediate floors, and the attic or roof. The intermediate floors are arranged in vertical bands. |
Sources: Blumenson, 65.
Also known as: Swedish Vernacular (Delaware. Pa.)
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as: Swiss Chalet
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A minor style vaguely recalling a Swiss chalet, promoted in pattern books in the mid-19th century. Generally with a gable in front, it was identified by gable-end balconies with decorative railings and extended roof overhangs. |
Sources: Foster, 2004.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Frequently built from mail-order plans, the economical small house of the postwar era offered a cheap alternative to the ranch house. Prospective buyers could leaf through plan books and magazines; choose a model named the “Monarch,” the “Tarry,” or perhaps the “Alpine;” and for the price of a stamp and a few dollars become the proud owners of a complete set of working blueprints and specifications. Houses built from stock plans were touted as “pretested,” offering a fine “custom” design without the considerable cost of hiring a professional architect. To keep prices down, the plan companies specified inexpensive factory-made plywood or prefab wood siding and stucco. The convenient one-story plan proliferated, but there was also the new split-level or “hi-ranch design.” This boasted vinyl tile floors, interior walls of gypsum (plasterboard), and a lower level often designed to be left unfinished until the space was needed. | |
| Small Suburban House | Shed roof
Plate glass Overhang Horizontal chimney Poured reinforced concrete Plate glass slider Concrete shade arbor Steel pole Flagstone terrace Hopper windows (pivots in) |
| Small Suburban House | Hipped roof
Pivoting windows Gutter Downspout Trellis Recessed entry porch Brick veneer Fixed multipane picture window Asphalt shingles Horizontal chimney |
| Small Suburban House | Low-pitched tar-and-gravel roof
Boxed eaves Awning window (pivots out) Rough stucco Brick built-in planter wall Carport Louvered vent |
Sources: Carley, p. 239-242.
The Futuristic Home
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| While tradition held through the 1950s and 1960s, innovative designers were always looking for new expressions. As the space age unfolded, visions of the ultra-modern future captured the American imagination, sometimes inspiring house designs that would have looked more at home on other planets than on Earth. New building methods made virtually any structural feat possible, and bizarre shapes were no problem. Most fell by the wayside, but the geodesic dome, patented by Buckminster Fuller in 1954, caught on in the 190s, and by the next decade more than 80,000 sets of plans for dome homes had been sold. | |
| Geodesic Dome | Domed roof
Acrylic skylight Acrylic porthole Shed-sided entry porch Acrylic transom |
| Bubble House
The bubble house was based on a construction technique known as Airform, patented by California architect Wallace Neff around 1940 and used sporadically in the 1950s. After the foundation was poured, a balloon was stretched over a steel cable, inflated, coated with reinforcing, then sprayed with concrete. A compressor kept the balloon full until the concrete had set, and then the balloon was deflated and removed. |
Sprayed concrete over balloon form
Hopper windows (pivots in) Stovepipe |
| Earth Sheltered House
The concept of the quiet, energy-efficient, earth-sheltered house, in which the roof and at least three sides of the structure are covered with soil, was developed in the early 1960s as an outgrowth of atomic fallout shelters, and its popularity grew in the next decades with increased awareness of environmental concerns. The primary building material is typically concrete, which acts as a thermal mass. The insulating soil helps warm the structure in cool weather and draws heat out in warm months. Solar panels collect and store natural energy, while south-facing windows capture low-angle winter sunlight. |
Flat precast concrete roof (earth covered)
Turbine ventilator Sunshade Retaining wall (concrete sewer pipe) Entrance tunnel Earth berm Plate-glass slider Plate-glass picture window |
Sources:
The Middle Atlantic
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
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The South
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| Although new ideas meant new designs in the postwar era, traditional styles never lost their popularity. The low-slung Regency-style house with its floor-to-ceiling windows, was especially well suited to comfortable one-story living. As always, Colonial style houses were in demand, especially reproductions of houses from Williamsburg, the restored capital of 18th-century Virginia that had been opened as the country’s first outdoor museum in 1926. All designs, of course, were freely updated for “modern” living. “If cooking’s going to be fun,” wrote one designer of a small traditional house in 1954, “we might as well make a family room out of the kitchen.” | |
| Regency Style House | Hipped roof
Brick chimney Twelve-over-twelve double-hung sash Flat roof White-washed brick Paneled door Louvered shutter French door (full-length casement) Multipane transom |
| Williamsburg Style House | Steep pitched roof
Chimney cap Brick chimney Split wood shingles Clapboards Brick foundation Nine-over-nine double-hung sash Chinese Chippendale railing Entry porch Colonette Modillion course Boxed eaves Pediment |
| Colonial Style House | Pitched roof
Triangular window Split wood shingles Clapboards Paneled door Louvered shutter Recessed porch Trellis Six-over-six double-hung sash |
Sources:
Also known as: Tudor, Jacobean, Jacobean Revival, Jacobethan Revival, The Jacobethan Revival, Elizabethan Revival
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The high-style Tudor Revival house of the late 19th and early 20th centuries derived primarily from English Renaissance buildings of the 16th and early 17th centuries, including those of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. These rambling, asymmetrically massed mansions typically featured steeply pitched roofs, one or more intersecting gables, decorative – rather than structural – half-timbering, and long rows of casement windows. By the early 20th century the Tudor Revival style was adapted to the middle-class suburban house and eventually became especially popular for the affordable small house of the 1920s and 1930s. There have been periodic revivals ever since. | Tudor arch
Gabled dormer Oriel window Casement window |
| Estate House | Pitched roof
Wood shingles Knee Cross brace Six-over-one double-hung sash Rubblework masonry Rubblework terrace Pointed arch Balustrade Half-timbering Bargeboard (vergeboard or gableboard) Trefoil cutout Valley Stacked chimney Shed-roofed dormer Intersecting gable Stucco |
| Garage (Auto Barn) | Pitched roof
Slate shingles Oak crossbeam Clapboards Decorative tail Lantern Half-timbering Wrought-iron strap hinge Vertical plank door (knotty oak) Stucco Leaded glass |
| Suburban House | Steeply pitched sloping gable
Clapboards Arched window Vertical plank door Girt French door (full-length casement) Stucco Chimney pot Knees Slate shingles |
Sources: Carley, p. 200-201; McAlester.
Victorian Gothic, 1860-1890
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The most distinguishing feature of the Victorian Gothic style is the polychromatic exterior finish. Materials of differing colors and texture are juxtaposed, creating decorative bands highlighting corners, arches and arcades. Ornamental pressed bricks, terra cotta tile and incised carvings of foliated and geometric patterns also are used to decorate wall surfaces. Straight-headed openings are used in addition to traditional Gothic (pointed arch) windows and doors. In timber frame buildings the gable, porch, and eave trim is massive and strong, resembling the structural members. This is in sharp contrast to the lighter curvilinear gingerbread-type trim of the Gothic Revival. |
Sources: Blumenson, 33.
Victorian Romanesque, 1870-1890
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
| A polychromatic exterior finish combined with the semi-circular arch highlight the Victorian Romanesque style. Different colored and textured stone or brick for window trim, arches, quoins and belt courses relieve the rock-faced stone finish. Decorated bricks and terra cotta tiles in conjunction with stone trim also may be used. The round arches usually supported by short polished stone columns. Foliated forms, grotesques, and arabesques decorated capitals, corbels, belt courses and arches. Windows vary in size and shape. |
Sources: Blumenson, 45.
Western Stick, 1890-1920
Also known as: The Western Stick Style, Western Stick Style
| Description and Variations | Features |
| The open and informal Western Stick style house is characterized by gently pitched gable roof that spreads out well beyond the walls and projecting balconies, porches, recessed entries, and attached loggias. A unique feature of the style is the attenuated and exposed stick-like roof rafters and purlins that project well beyond the ends of the roof. Window lintels, railings and other beams protrude through vertical posts. When pegs are used to join the horizontal and vertical members, the ends are rounded and polished as are the corners of posts, beams and rafters. The exterior finish of wood shingles or wood siding is protected by earth-tone stains. |
Sources: Blumenson, 57.
Also known as:
| Description and Variations | Features |
Sources:
Sources Cited
About.com. Architecture Glossary. Accessed December 13, 2009.
Blumenson, J.J.G. Identifying American Architecture, A Pictorial Guide to Styles and Terms. Revised edition, 1990.
Carley, Rachel. The Visual Dictionary of American Domestic Architecture. 1994.
Foster, Gerald. American Houses: A Field Guide to the Architecture of the Home. 2004.
Longstreth, Richard. The Buildings of Main Street, A Guide to American Commercial Architecture. 1987.
McAlester, Virginia & Lee. A Field Guide to American Houses. 1984.
Phillips, Steven J. Old House Dictionary, An Illustrated Guide to American Domestic Architecture, 1600 to 1940. 1994.
Roth, Leland. A Concise History of American Architecture. 1979.
Vogeler. House Styles. Accessed July 8, 2017.
White & Robertson. Architecture & Ornament, A Visual Guide. 1991.
Willensky, Elliot and Norval White. AIA Guide to New York City. 2000.
Revision History
Original Version, July 8, 2017.