Francesco Lagnese; Douglas Friedman You can find houses from coast to coast that dream of ancient Greek classicism or Long Island-era Gatsby, and have stories to tell about their towers, turrets, and walls that reflect distant periods in American history. We can learn a lot about our forefathers’ lives and how they would live today from the most intimate architectural scales. Here’s a list of some of our most beloved house styles.
dobe
P_WeiGetty ImagesAdobe, one of North America’s oldest building materials, is found in a New Mexico home. Traditional adobe (or Pueblo) is a low-slung home made from sun-dried timber beams and mud bricks. It’s located around a central courtyard. Although the form can be simple, and the sizes may vary, these structures are usually spread outwards, not upwards. A majority of adobe houses have a dotted line that penetrates at least one section on the front façade. These are the ends of the timber beams supporting the roof and provide visual excitement as well as structural integrity.
No matter how much they know, every art lover has seen examples of Adobe Revival architecture. Georgia O’Keefe’s Ghost Ranch, New Mexico is a perfect example of this architectural style. The ranch’s oldest rooms are from the middle of the 18th century. O’Keefe updated her home, making sure that there was enough light to support her art practice. She also scattered midcentury-modern classics in every room. Lucky adobe homeowners can follow O’Keefe’s lead and keep their furniture simple but well-designed.
Crafts and rts
Madeline Stuart decorated this charming Arts and Crafts home and it was featured in ELLE DECOR’s June 2014 issue. This style was developed in response the industrial revolution. It emphasized detailed, time-consuming craftsmanship. William Morris and Edwin Lutyens were two of the most well-known names in the movement. (Morris’s wallpaper designs are still available for sale today.
This style was first built in England in the middle part of the 19th century. It borrowed elements from Gothic and Medieval architecture (both periods were considered design golden ages for English) such as stained-glass windows and pitched roofs.
Many of its historical references were modernized and updated once the movement reached America at the end of this century. Louis Sullivan, an architect, reduced the scrollwork and curlicues of earlier styles to simple curves and swirls. The Arts and Crafts style was most popular between 1900 and 1940. It split into two distinct directions based on geography: the Prairie style home, which was created in Chicago by Frank Lloyd Wright, and Craftsman style which took root in Southern California.
rt Deco
Casa de Serralves, a Portuguese example of an Art Deco home, is an example. This style was also popular in the United States.Loop ImagesGetty ImagesArt Deco homes are the structural equivalent of the Jazz Age flapper’s simple outfit. These buildings were decorated with graphic shapes such as zig-zags and stripes, pyramids, and even chevrons. Single-family Art Deco homes with only one family are uncommon, since the style was mostly used for commercial buildings (see Manhattan’s skyscrapers), but they are not difficult to find.
Between 1900 and 1920, France saw the first Art Deco buildings. However, the heyday of this period was between the two World Wars, 1920-1940. The aesthetic of the interior was all-encompassing. Architects often designed custom or built-in furniture to complement their built space. Chrome, glass and marble were the most popular, along with blond woods, velvet, silk, and sumptuous textiles such as silk and velvet.
Brutalist
Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67 Montreal residences, a pioneering experiment in multifamily housing, is now well-known. However, the Brutalist style remains a visual language that focuses on raw industrial materials, a lack ornamentation and an overall imposing presence.
The aesthetic was based on a simple and clear philosophy: visual honesty. Brutalist buildings all share exposed materials. This includes cast concrete, brick, and stone. The decoration of the structure is not made from load-bearing materials. It’s the medium and how it forms as a building that matters. Paul Rudolph, an American architect, was a pioneer in the use of this movement. He built the Yale School of Architecture’s 1963 building.
Brutalist residential architecture, which is mainly multi-family housing, has more walls than windows. This is why it was so widely condemned. Despite how oppressive this style of architecture may appear, there are still a lot of Brutalism fans spread across the U.S.
English Cottage
The typical thatched-roof cottage from the United Kingdom. This style, like many other building styles, migrated to the United States.Tim GrahamGetty imagesThe American English cottage is mostly remembered for its nostalgic appeal. This type of home is easily identifiable by its small, unorthodox floor plan and its unusual scale. This style only has two floors, and features a thick thatched roof, large windows, and wide plank wood floors.
A traditional English cottage is not built in one go but rather over many generations. Even if you are not part of the minor landed class, you can still copy the look by making sure that your floor plan is functional and not functional.
The home’s small size suits the English country aesthetic perfectly: too many books, old chintz and sagging armchairs with wings that have been sat for hours. This home style is best located on a hilltop or hidden away in an ivy-covered garden. It is built to look old and imperfect, but it is charming.
Federal
A classic Federal-style home in Alexandria. Robert AlexanderGetty Images. Federal-style homes closely resemble the Georgian period. They were built mainly between 1780-1820 (continuing through 1840 across the US). The Federal home, like Georgian styles was essentially a box. It had two rooms in most cases. However, architectural add-ons were added to the sides and back.
Clapboard siding was very popular in the Northern states, while brick was more popular in the Southern states. Most chimneys can be found in the middle of a home or on one side. Federal homes have a lighter atmosphere than their predecessors. This is likely due to the larger windows and higher ceilings. These homes have decorative plaster, which can be found in mouldings or in mantels. This adds a whimsical touch to otherwise very serious structures.
Georgian
A 1770 Georgian home in upstate New York belonging to Alyse Archer-Coite.Francesco LagneseGeorgian style homes, like Arts and Crafts, originated in England, albeit about two centuries prior. This period includes the reign of three king Georges (1698-1811), but the American architectural style survived for two decades. This style is marked by symmetry, proportion and gridlike forms. Most structures have a central paneled door with an even amount of windows (often with small panes of transparent glass on each side), a central chimney and a neat side-gabled roofing. The game was all about right angles.
The Georgian may be made of wood and shingle walls (most common in the North), while brick versions, sometimes covered with stucco, are found in the middle and south. Each decade saw Georgian homes include more ornamental additions. These often reinterpreted or reused motifs from the Italian Renaissance and classical Rome. Variance was generally determined by the skill and taste of the builders, from the original craftsmen who introduced the style to colonies before 1740 to professional architect who spread it to other parts of the U.S.
Gothic Revival
This is a stunning example of Gothic Revival-style architecture in New Brighton, Staten Island. His confectionary palace Strawberry Hill House was built between 1749-1776. He made many adjustments during that time. It began as a collection cottages and evolved into a Gothic castle worthy Beauty and the Beast.
Modern eyes are attracted to the Gothic Revival style because of its towers, spires and decorative tracery. Each surface is treated. Strawberry Hill’s ceilings are decorated with plasterwork, like frosting on a cake. The pointed arch is a central architectural detail in Gothic Revival homes, just as it is with Gothic structures. It can be found in halls, windows, and doors. It is dramatic, to be sure. You will need to look up to see the intricate details at every corner.
Greek Revival
Hendricks Churchill designed a Connecticut Greek Revival home for Margaret Heiner, Oliver Tostmann. As seen in ELLE DECOR’s February 2021 issue. The perfect sense of symmetry is what distinguishes this type of building. The front doors are almost always located in the center and are almost always surrounded or encircled by an entry porch. Columns are required for the porch, which is essentially ancient Greek. Doric columns with simple bases and capitals are preferred. These houses had simple forms, and a gabled roof with a low pitch.
This style was popularized between 1825-1861 in the United States and it is still being used today. This style became synonymous with American national identity at the time it was most popular. Naturally, style differences were influenced by the region. Although the Greek Revival style is often associated with Southern plantations, it was more common in areas that had high population growth, such as New York and Pennsylvania. Gwynedd Hall, Pennsylvania (1824), and the Eliphas Buffett House (1800) are two examples of this period.
Mediterranean
Mark D. Sikes has recently remodeled this extravagant Mediterranean Revival villa. Douglas FriedmanIf you have ever driven around Hollywood, you will have passed by a small (or large) Mediterranean villa. From its Spanish origins, this home seems to have been pushed into American suburbia. It is generally cream-colored and has terra-cotta roof tiles. It also features arched windows, doors, and scrolling ironwork. This style is suitable for temperate climates. It was inspired by the Mediterranean and has since been adopted in states such as Texas, California, Florida, and California.
Mediterranean-style homes are influenced by Spanish architecture, but also have a lot in common with Italian architecture. Many of the newer homes have square or round towers (Spanish). This style was very popular in the 1990s, and it is still very popular in the 2000s. Some structures feature Moorish details such as pointed arches and stripes, checks, or graphic floral-inspired patterns.
Midcentury Modern
Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Farnsworth House in Illinois.BuyenlargeGetty ImagesIf there is one architectural style that has come back with force in the 21st century, it’s midcentury modern. The style encompasses a variety of forms, from furniture to houses. In the middle of the 20th century, there was Scandinavian modernity. This style used clean lines, natural materials like wood, wide windows and low-slung profiles. It evolved alongside American midcentury modernism which was very similar in form.
Both coasts are home to many iconic examples of this style. There’s Fallingwater, the Pennsylvania home Frank Lloyd Wright built in 1935. The Glass House was built by Philip Johnson in Connecticut in 1948 and 1949. And the Neutra VDL house in Los Angeles, which Richard Neutra built in 1932. It was rebuilt in 1964.
Many of the most important architects of the midcentury also designed furniture, such as Charles and Ray Eames (Alvar Aalto), Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Sarinen, etc. This allowed original pieces to be combined with their homes. The perfect harmony between furniture and structures was achieved.
Postmodern
The Vanna Venturi House, designed by architect Robert Venturi in the early ’60s for his mother, is a classic example of postmodern design.BuyenlargeGetty ImagesPostmodern homes are distinctive in their difference. While each home is unique, they share many characteristics that are typical of postmodern design. These include the use of primary colors, right angles and geometric architectural additions. They also have half-moon windows and exposed concrete. Pipes and piping are all piping. And, yes, there’s a glass brick. Postmodernism sought to make something new and unexpected, to counter the straight-laced modernism of the past half century. Robert Venturi, one the founders of the movement, summarised the style perfectly with the cheeky remark to Mies van den Rohe’s famous phrase, “Less than a bore”.
These homes are filled with humor, which combine elements as diverse as Art Deco and ancient Egypt. Sometimes, trompe l’oeil or abstract interventions may be visible in the interiors. Outside, superfluous decorative items (like weathervanes and non-functioning turrets), can be seen. Plays on perspective, such as the Beetlejuice house, often find their way into postmodern homes.
Ranch
This ranch-style home is located in Austin, Texas. Interiors were designed by Paul Lamb Architects. Ryann Ford Ranches are one-story homes with low-pitched roofs. Ranches are usually asymmetrical with a front door that is placed off-center. They also have a mixture of materials such as brick, glass, and wood paneling. There may also be a cement patio at the back or front of the house. These houses can sometimes be extended to include wings on one or both sides.
This style was born in Southern California where it is well-suited for the climate. The style was popularized in America during the 1950s and 60s, after the austerity of domestic architecture during World War II ended. Ranch-style homes in the United States date back to 1935 at the end of Art Deco and Art Moderne. They were popular in the cities of Phoenix, Dallas, Los Angeles and Atlanta.
Shingle Style
John GreimGetty Images. A Shingle Style home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. John GreimGetty Photos. Shingle Style homes are often paired with stone. But, they were used as an accompaniment to the shingles and not as the main course. Shingle Style homes often reference Queen Anne, which was responsible for its shingles, large porches and irregular forms, and Colonial Revival which had the same rambling floor plans and gambrel roofings. Henry Hobson Richardson in the late 19th century popularized the Romanesque style with its wide arches and stone exteriors. This style was most prominent between 1880-1810, but modern iterations continue to be built in the spirit of quiet, charming neighborhoods with shingle-heavy early neighborhoods.
The Beale residence, also known as Grey Gardens serves as an example of this style. The house’s 14 rooms and rambling floor plan were home to a mother and daughter duo who were famously photographed by Albert and David Maysles in 1975. Their eccentricity was mirrored in the house.
Tudor
Stoke-by-Nayland is home to historic Tudor buildings. This style was copied endlessly across the pond. Geography PhotosGetty ImagesThe title of the Tudor style is somewhat misleading. Contrary to Tudor architecture, which was prevalent in England’s Tudor period (16th century), Tudor-style domestic architecture is based in the United States on European medieval and Renaissance vernacular architecture. It was popular between 1890 to 1940. However, it reached its peak during the 1920s when about 25% of all new homes were constructed in this style. The style was replaced by midcentury modernism in the post-World War II era.
Tudor homes are distinguished by their high-pitched front-gabled roofs and exposed rafters. Half timbering, however, is what makes them stand out to the modern eye. These are structures that have load-bearing timber beams, which are filled with panels between them. These exposed timber beams were purely decorative in some Tudor homes from the 20th century. The homes boasted false thatched roofs, which are a joke in disguise, and winking at Shakespearean cottages, if they don’t exactly copy it.
You can find certain elements of the Tudor style in small enclaves within big cities. Half-timbering, decorated entrances, window surrounds and pitched roofs can be found on smaller buildings. This creates a Disney-like juxtaposition.
Victorian
This is a classic example of Victorian architecture. Jeff GreenbergGetty ImagesIn furniture design, Victoriana is synonymous with the least desirable. It’s heavy, clunky and dark, the sad, cluttered style that the grandmother doesn’t steal candy from you. The American Victorian home has a light side. Although technically the Victorian period spans Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1899), the Victorian homes that are most commonly considered Victorian today were built between 1836 and 1900.
The era of mass production made residential building more feasible. Doors and windows could now be produced in large quantities. Homeowners began to move away from the simple American style and towards more elaborate, frilly confections.
Victorian homes could have turrets and monstrous wings, a circular window at odd places, off-center entrances, and more porches than one family might ever need. The houses were painted in a variety of colors, including robin-s-egg blue and coral red. Many also featured stained glass both inside and outside. These houses were tall, often with three stories and steep pitched roofs that attracted the eye upwards. Victorian architecture was all about individuality. It was built in a time when simplicity and function were valued.