Every house has a unique architectural style. Sometimes the architecture is a blend of more than one architectural style due to additions. The National Association of Realtors explains that renovations, or new, eclectic mixes make fitting a home into one specific category daunting or even impossible.
NAR’s REALTOR® Magazine has compiled a guide to common residential architectural styles. Some of the most common are listed below:
• Cape Cod: Some of the first houses built in the United States were Cape Cods. The original colonial Cape Cod homes were shingle-sided, one-story cottages with no dormers. During the mid-20th century, the small, uncomplicated Cape Cod shape became popular in suburban developments. A 20th-century Cape Cod is square or rectangular with one or one-and-a-half stories and steeply pitched, gabled roofs. More commonly today, a cape cod has dormers and shutters.
• Craftsman: Popularized at the turn of the 20th century by architect and furniture designer Gustav Stickley, this style reflects a simple form with low, broad proportions and lack of ornamentation. This style featured overhanging eaves, a low-slung gabled roof, and wide front porches framed by pedestal-like tapered columns. Material often included stone, rough-hewn wood, and stucco. Many homes have wide front porches across part of the front, supported by columns.
• Ranch: Sometimes called the California ranch style, this home emerged as one of the most popular American styles in the 1950s and 60s, when the automobile had replaced early 20th-century forms of transportation, such as streetcars. Now mobile homebuyers could move to the suburbs into bigger homes on bigger lots. The style is characterized by its one-story, pitched-roof construction, built-in garage, wood or brick exterior walls, sliding and picture windows, and sliding doors leading to patios.
• Victorian: Victorian architecture dates from the second half of the 19th century. Advancements in machine technology meant that Victorian-era builders could easily incorporate mass-produced ornamentation such as brackets, spindles, and patterned shingles. The last true Victorians were constructed in the early 1900s, but contemporary builders often borrow Victorian ideas, designing eclectic "neo-Victorians." These homes combine modern materials with 19th century details, such as curved towers and spindled porches. A number of Victorian styles are recreated on the fanciful "Main Street" at Disney theme parks in Florida, California, and Europe.
Lauren Bunting is a licensed Associate Broker with Keller Williams Realty of Delmarva in Ocean City, MD.
Lauren Bunting is a Broker with Keller Williams Realty of Delmarva in Ocean City, Maryland.
