History of American Houses

7/30/2019 History of American Houses

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Log CabinDates: up to 1850s

The earliest settler houses went up quickly,

using the most abundant material around

woodto protect against the harsh weath-

er.

SaltboxDates: 1607 to early 1700s

Most saltboxes existed in and around New

England. Their steep roof pitch is a holdo-

ver from the days of thatching, but early

settlers learned that wood shingles were

better at sloughing off snow and rain.

GeorgianDates: 1700 to 1780

American Georgian architecture is based on

earlier European styles which emphasized

classical Greek and Roman shapes. Geor-

gian houses could be found in every part of

the colonies in the 18th century.

FederalDates: 1780 to 1820

This was the first style of the newly formed

United States, and it had a place in nearly

every part of the countryparticularly in

bustling urban areas like Salem, Massa-

chusetts

Greek RevivalDates: 1825 to 1860

Americans, newly enamored with Greek

democracy, built civic buildings that looked

like Greek temples. The fashion seeped

into residential architecture as far as the

most rural farmland, popularized through

pattern.

Gothic RevivalDates: 1840 to 1880

The Gothic Revival is another trend that

started in England and made its way to the

U.S. The style mimics the shapes found on

Medieval churches and houses, and is al-

most always found in rural areas.

American House Styles

ItalianateDates: 1840 to 1885

Modeled after a fashion started in England,

the Italianate style rejected the rigid rules of

classical architecture and instead looked to

the more informal look of Italian rural hous-

es.

Second EmpireDates: 1855 to 1885

The style name refers to France's second

empirethe reign of Napoleon III from

1852-1870during which the mansard roof

was in vogue

Queen AnnDates: 1880 to 1910

The Queen Anne stylewhat most people

would call "Victorian"is the first product of

the American Industrial Age.

Take a stroll through the history of American houses, from the colonial era to the modern age.

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ShingleDates: 1880 to 1900

A style mostly popular along the coast in

the Northeast, Shingle houses were usually

large architects' masterpieces, free-form

mansions built into the rocks and hills of the

shore.

Richardsonian RomanesqueDates: 1880 to 1900

Closely related to the Queen Anne and

Shingle styles, Romanesque houses are

always stone or brick.

Folk VictorianDates: ca. 1870 to 1910

As the industrial age made machine-cut

wood details affordable and available to the

average American, homeowners added

mass-produced decorative trim (called gin-

gerbread) to their small, folk cottages.

Colonial RevivalDates: 1880 to 1955

The American Centennial celebrations of

1876 brought about a nostalgia for the

country's past, including its early house

styles. This is one of the country's most

enduring styles, as millions of examples

survive, and a renewal of interest in it led to

a Neo-Colonial Revival of the late 20th and

early 21st centuries.

Cape CodDates: 1920s to 1940s

The Cape Cod cottage is a subset of the

Colonial Revival style, most popular from

the 1920s to the 1940s. It's modeled after

the simple houses of colonial New England,

though early examples were almost always

shingled. Many houses of the post World

War II building boom were Capes.

NeoclassicalDates: 1895 to 1950

The World's Columbian Exposition in Chica-

go in 1893 featured a classical theme,

sparking a renewed interest in Greek and

Roman architecture. The style is closely

related to Colonial Revival, as both look

back on a time in American architecture

when classical forms dominated.

Tudor RevivalDates: 1890 to 1940

More Medieval than Tudor, the style's de-

tails loosely harken back to an early English

form. Though the style began in the late

19th century, it was immensely popular in

the growing suburbs of the 1920s. A version

of Tudor came back into vogue in the late

20th century

French RevivalDates: 1915 to 1945

American soldiers serving in France duringWorld War I would have seen many houses

with these characteristics in the French

countryside. Like the Tudor Revival, which

it resembles, the style was most popular in

the growing suburbs of the 1920s.

Spanish Colonial RevivalDates: 1915 to 1940

The Panama-California Exposition in San

Diego in 1915 featured the California pavil-

ion, a building with details borrowed from

Spanish, Mission, and Italian architecture.

The style was to the Southwest and Florida

what the Colonial Revival and Tudor were

to the Northeast and Midwest: an incredibly

popular style that filled out the suburbs in

the years after World War I.

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Pueblo RevivalDates: 1910 to present

Pueblo Revival houses have their roots in

adobe houses built by Native Americans

and Spanish colonial settlers in the South-

west. The style prevails in that part of the

country, particularly in Arizona and New

Mexico where originals survive.

CraftsmanDates: 1905 to 1930

Followers of the Arts and Crafts movement

(started in England in the late 19th centu-

ry), A more vernacular version of the style,

also known as Bungalow or Craftsman

Bungalow, was popularized through the

patterns of Gustav Stickley's Craftsman

magazine. The style also grew out of

Frank Lloyd Wright's work in the Prairie

style at the turn of the 20th century.

ModernisticDates: 1920 to 1940

Earlier Modernistic houses of the 1920s

were in the Art Deco style, while later exam-

ples were in the more streamlined Art Mo-

derne style. Both were adaptations of the

popular forms used on commercial buildings

of the time (like New York City's Chrysler

Building).

InternationalDates: 1925 to present

The style took its name from a 1932 exhibit

at the Museum of Modern Art that showed

the groundbreaking work of European Bau-

haus architects like Walter Gropius and

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Before World

War II, it was most popular in California

(where this house by Richard Neutra is

located) and affluent Northeast suburbs

(such as New Canaan, Connecticut, where

Philip Johnson's Glass House is).

RanchDates: 1930s to 1960s

Loosely based on Spanish colonial houses

in the Southwest, the Ranch house is a

creation of car culture: When homeowners

began using their cars for transportation,

they could put their houses farther apart on

larger plots of land. Along with the split-

level of the 1950s and 60s and the builder's

shed of 1970s and 1980s, the Ranch was

one of the dominant house forms of the

second half of the 20th century.

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History of American Houses