This article is the second in the series reviewing defined house styles. In it we’ll cover the simple Dutch Colonial, Farmhouse, and Log House styles; the refined Elizabethan, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, and French Revival styles; the eclectic Italianate, Mediterranean, and Gothic; the quintessential American styles of the Foursquare and Mid-Century Modern, and the uniqueness of the International style.
Photo credits for the images below are at the end of the article.
Dutch Colonial
The Dutch Colonial style in the U.S. is defined by the gambrel roof. This roof acts as a gable roof but has two slopes on each long side of the house, one very steep, the other less steep. This allows for what would typically be attic space to be used as a large second floor.
Windows for the upper floor are placed at the gable ends, with dormer windows along the length.
Cross-gambrel roofs are often used for L-shaped or T-shaped house plans and as a composition element for the exterior design of the house.
The two left images are older pre-twentieth century American houses.
The top right house is an early-to-mid twentieth century suburban home.
The bottom right house is a recent suburban variant mixed with a farmhouse porch.
Elizabethan Revival
The Elizabethan style originated from 16th century Europe during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This style overlapped with the historic Tudor style but represented the move to a more prosperous period.
Though not as common as most of the other European-influenced styles, it gained popularity as a revival style in the U.S. in the late 1800’s and continued into the early decades of the 1900’s.
The Elizabethan style is typically associated with English manors and thereby most common with larger houses and mansions in the U.S. It uses brick and stone as the primary exterior materials. It’s an eclectic style, with compositions that can be symmetrical or asymmetrical in design. Gable roofs and tower elements are common, with hipped roofs sometimes mixed in.
A typical Elizabethan house in American uses a long gable roof parallel to the front face of the house, with smaller cross gables used for the portions of the house that extend out from the main house form.
Windows are often grouped into sets of three, four, or five, and leaded glass in a diamond grid pattern is common. The windows are often trimmed with stone.
Chimneys are tall projections above the roof, made of brick in a decorative form.
Timber framing patterns of the Tudor period, which preceded and overlapped with the Elizabethan, is sometimes used for the second floor atop a masonry first floor.
Note the second floor Tudor style in the bottom-right image.
Farmhouse
The American farmhouse style is based on straightforward construction and looks using wood framing and siding.
The style often consists of a two-story rectangular house with a gable or gambrel roof, though hipped roofs are sometimes used. A deep wrap-around porch is a common element.
Windows are simple double-hung units, often paired.
The siding typically consists of horizontal boards, though vertical board-and-batten siding is sometimes used. The house is typically painted white, though contemporary suburban variations often use color.
The top two images are actual farmhouses (the top right is my cousin’s), and the bottom left is a plantation house.
The bottom right is a typical suburban variation of the style.
Federal
The Federal style is an upgrade of the colonial style. It developed after the American Revolution and the founding of the country, when the classical style was adopted to represent the Federal government.
The house form is typically a two-story rectangle with the long side parallel to the street, though some narrow urban lots require the length to be perpendicular to the street.
The roof form is a simple gable, with an occasional cross gable centered above the entry.
The composition is formal with the entry centered and windows placed and aligned symmetrically on both floors. Each window has a set of shutters.
Brick chimneys are located at each end of the house centered on the gable peak.
The entrances often have a flat-roofed porch, sometimes semicircular in plan, using Greek columns and profiled eaves. Decorative round or elliptical windows are often integrated into a gable end when there is no chimney.
The narrow house shown bottom left integrates the elements of the style but has the gable end of the house facing the street, along with an off-center entry.
Foursquare
The American Foursquare is a common and easily recognized style of the early 1900’s.
This style uses a simple two-story square or somewhat rectangular plan with four square rooms at each corner on both floors, hence the foursquare name. A hipped roof sits atop the two floors, and a deep broad front porch stretches the length of the front of the house.
The composition is formal, with a centered entrance with two large windows to each side and aligned windows on the upper floor adding to the foursquare expression. The attic sometimes acts as another level by using large dormers centered on each side of the house.
The exterior materials are usually simple brick with wood or brick columns supporting the porch. Detailing is simple and straightforward, though more refined decorative touches and materials are sometimes used.
This style can be looked at as a two-story sister style to the bungalow.
The top right uses a balustrade atop the porch, shallow-arched windows on the first floor, and simple decorative stone inserts atop the windows.
The top right is the most traditional foursquare style, while the bottom right house extends the porch as a porte-cochere over the driveway.
The bottom left house uses copper for the eaves and the dormer, a tile roof, and decorative stone at the center and corners of the house. The windows are of various sizes but are placed and aligned symmetrically.
French Revival
The French Revival style, though not as common, gained popularity in the U.S. in the early twentieth century, primarily after World War I. It is often used for larger stately homes.
The style is composed of the various design components used in French architecture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. These include:
- Two story symmetrical compositions.
- Stone as the exterior material.
- Clean lines and minimized decoration
- Hipped or mansard-style roofs.
- Grand entrances centered in the front of the house.
- Large windows placed uniformly and aligned on both floors.
- Decorative dormers aligned with the windows below.
- Corner turrets
The mansard roof is similar to the gambrel. However, the lower slope is often steeper, close to vertical, while the top slope is very shallow, close to horizontal. This creates the effect of a sloped upper level without seeing the top slope of the roof, creating a flat top look. The roof is typically hipped rather than gabled, and usually metal but can be shingled.
The use of these elements create an easily recognized and elegant style, though not as common as most other styles in the U.S.
Georgian Revival
The Georgian style is named for the kings that ruled Great Britain in the 1700’s and early 1800’s, not the state of Georgia (though the colony was named for one of them).
Though the style in Britain spanned the pre-and-post colonial eras of the U.S., it came into prominence in America in the late 1800’s, sometimes also called Colonial Revival.
This style uses similar design elements as the Colonial and Federal house styles, such as simple two-story rectangular plans, centered entry, formal composition, and classical but simple and restrained details. This style, along with the Federal style, brought classical elements to both large and moderate sized houses during the 19th Century.
The differences (if you want to call them that) are:
- The Georgian style is primarily defined by the era it was built, which was after the Colonial era and after the Federal style became popular.
- Georgian style houses typically use red clay bricks (and sometimes stone), whereas Colonial houses typically use painted wood siding and Federal houses typically use whitewashed brick or wood siding.
- Georgian style houses typically don’t use shutters on the windows.
The top right image shows a Georgian house with a Dutch Colonial addition on the right.
Gothic Revival
Though created many centuries earlier, the Gothic Style gained new interest in the mid-1800’s. Though mostly used in religious and academic buildings, elements of the style, mainly pointed arch windows, made their way into houses during this period.
Most non-residential Gothic Revival buildings of this era used stone as the primary exterior material, with detailed stone surrounds at the windows. However, stone was not affordable for most people.
Since the pointed arch window is the most common element, the Gothic Revival name is applied across various styles and houses of various materials, from the simple Farmhouse style to the ornate wood Victorian styles.
Note the wide range of materials and styles that integrated the pointed arch window as the defining element of the style.
Greek Revival
The Greek Revival style came into prominence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This style uses at a larger scale the classical elements of ancient Greece and hearken back to the Antebellum plantation styles of the pre-Civil War American south.
This style is denoted by simple rectangular house plans, symmetrical composition, and large porches supported by large Greek columns. The porches are often topped by a cross gable roof creating the classic pediment design of the Greeks. Decorative elements are sparse and located primarily on the porches, the pediments, and at the front door.
Greek Revival style houses are typically whitewashed brick or wood siding.
International
The International style is a complete break away from any prior house styles. Coming into popularity in the mid-twentieth century, it’s roots extend back to the early part of the century, emanating from the Bauhaus school design movement in Europe.
This style is not about the face of the building creating a style, but rather the use of new materials and technologies that open up the house to the exterior.
The style is denoted by its simple rectangular forms, horizontal lines, and large expanses of glass. There is no decorative detailing or the use of traditional materials in traditional ways such as brick, stone, or wood.
There is no aesthetic references to the past, and no regional stylistic variations. Roofs are flat. Any materials used are exposed and expressed, so you can see steel or concrete columns that hold up the house or concrete joists or slabs forming the roof.
It adapts to local climate and local conditions through the use of overhangs for shading or being raised up above seasonal flooding, but not much else.
This is a style you either love or hate.
The top right image is a late 20th Century house influenced by the International style.
Italianate
The Italianate style is another one of those that became popular in the late 1800’s and into the early 1900’s. The style stems from the designs of Italian villas in Italy during that period.
Though this style uses detail elements from classic Roman design, it uses asymmetrical compositions rather than formal symmetry and uses the details in an eclectic way.
Defining features can include:
- Tall narrow windows
- Window pediments or overhangs
- Porches with ornate narrow columns, thin balustrades, and fret work
- Widely spaced brackets underneath the roof eaves
- Tall square towers
- flat or sometimes shallow gable roofs
This style is often considered within the broader Victorian style, but since it has Italian rather than British heritage it should be considered outside of the Victorian group.
Log House
The log house is a larger and often grander version of the log cabin of the early wilderness houses in America.
It’s style is denoted by its name. Logs, stacked horizontally and interlocked at the corners, are used as the primary perimeter structure and enclosure of the house. Logs can also be used as column supports and for exposed trusses that hold up the roof.
A grand log home is shown in the top left image.
A more traditional log house is shown bottom right.
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean style is a popular aesthetic in southern California and in Florida, taken from European villas along the western Mediterranean Sea.
This style primarily uses rectangular forms covered in light-colored stucco, topped with a low-slope red tile roof. The areas of the stucco walls are large compared to the windows placed in them, though large windows are common in the main living spaces. Windows can be simple rectangles, arched, or placed into palladian groupings (three tall narrow widows: the center window is arched, while the other two are rectangular).
These homes can be classical in their design using symmetry, or more dynamic in their layout and composition of forms. Arched porticoes (porches), Juliet balconies, and tower elements can be integrated into the design.
This style can incorporate classical Italian to European Spanish elements, as they are similar in climate and aesthetic.
Large villas are shown in the top images.
The bottom left image integrates Spanish style and tower elements.
The bottom right is a typical suburban home in the Mediterranean style. Note the classical palladian window group between the porch and garage.
Mid-Century Modern
The Mid-Century Modern style became popular in the 1950’s and into the 1960’s. This style reflected a new modern spirit and new suburban lifestyle during the explosion of suburban growth during this period.
Emanating primarily from southern California, Mid-Century Modern style is a dynamic architectural refinement of the ranch style and a humanized version of the International style. It uses the clean lines and large glass elements of the International style and the rear-yard focus and natural materials of the Usonian houses of Frank Lloyd Wright.
This style is the first popular suburban house style to place its primary living spaces to the back of the house. These spaces are open and flowing to each other, focused on the patio, swimming pool, back yard, or courtyard of the house. The front of the house might have a formal living or dining room at the front, but the family’s focus is to the back of the house.
Distinguishing features include a low height single-story form that spreads wide across its property. The roof can be flat or low-sloped, with the living spaces open to the underside of the gable roof. Structural elements such as roof beams are often exposed and visible.
Natural materials such as wood and stone are used in a non-traditional aesthetic, used as blocks of materials rather than the consistent and decorated enclosure of earlier house styles. The front of the house is typically focused on a prominent porch with the projecting gable roof open to the underside of the slope, with the garage and bedroom wings to either side.
Top left is an Eichler house with a grand central entry flanked by a garage on one side and a blank wall on the other denoting the focus of the house to the back.
The bottom right image shows the use of stone as a block of material supporting the carport and as a base for the other supporting elements of the house.
Neo-Classical
The Neo-Classical style is a broad term referencing house styles influenced by ancient Greek and Roman architecture. These styles began to be used in the late 1700’s Federal and Antebellum styles, then continued with later Classical Revival and Greek Revival styles.
Photo Credits
Dutch Colonial
- Top Left: Author’s own
- Top Right: Drown Soda, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Bottom Right: Author’s own
- Bottom Left: Mwanner at en.widipedia, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Elizabethan
- Top Left: Lithium6ion
- Top Right: Jonathan FeBland, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
- Bottom Right: David Smith / Knightstone, an Elizabethan house /, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
- Bottom Left: Sue Adair, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
Farmhouse
- Top Left: Warren LeMay
- Top Right: Google Earth
- Bottom Right: Binyamin Mellilsh
- Bottom Left: Sabart
Federal
- Top Left: Daviddelaria, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Top Right: Arthistoryenthusiast, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Bottom Right: Maksim Sokolov, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Bottom Left: Author’s own
Foursquare
- Top Left: Chevsapher
- Top Right: National Park Service
- Bottom Right: Brian Stansberry, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
- Bottom Left: Author’s own
French Revival
- Top Left: Stanley Walker, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
- Top Right: Sanfranman59, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Bottom Right: Author’s own
- Bottom Left: Niki Nagy
Georgian Revival
- Top Left: Andrew Dunn https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
- Top Right: Jerrye & Roy Klotz MD, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Bottom: Stephen Lea https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Gothic Revival
- Top Left: Kharris0317, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Top Right: Snapper07, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Bottom Right: Humphrey Bolton, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
- Bottom Left: Julien Duguay, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Greek Revival
- Top Left: Kharris0317, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Top Right: Homesower, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Bottom Right: Galen Parks Smith, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Bottom Left: National Park Service
International
- Top Left: Ovs
- Top Right: Scott Webb
- Bottom Right: Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress
- Bottom Left: Dreamyshade, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
Italianate
- Top Left: Gerri Gray, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Top Right: Michaelfavor at the English Language Wikipedia, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Bottom: Author’s own
Log House
- Top: Visually Us
- Bottom: Eneida Nieves
Mediterranean
- Top Left: Author’s own
- Top Right: Author’s own
- Bottom Right: BrendelSignature, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Bottom Left: Binksternet
Mid-Century Modern
- Top Left: Los Angeles https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Top Right: Stilfehler, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Bottom Right: Kburkha2, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
- Bottom Left: Zachary Groz, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
Neoclassical
- Top Left: Oca250, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Top Right: Marelbu, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
- Bottom Right: Bill Fitzpatrick, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
- Bottom Left: Jerrye and Roy Klotz MD, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
Top Image: Photo by Benjamin Lipsman.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
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