Types of Victorian Houses
The Victorian era lasted from the ascension of Queen Victoria in 1837 until her death in 1901. Victorian architecture in the United States refers to house styles made popular during the later years of her reign, 1840 to 1900. Types of Victorian houses technically include Stick, Queen Anne, Richardsonian, and Shingle styles. Some styles, such as the Italianate and Second Empire, overlap this era, so they are often considered Victorian. Does this Spark an idea?
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Italianate
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The villas and country houses of Tuscany inspired the Italianate style. This style is more common in urban townhouses than in single dwelling houses, but either way these are usually buildings with flat roofs and deep overhangs with narrow, door-like windows.
Second Empire
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Second Empire houses were inspired by Napoleon III, the then wildly fashionable nephew of the French emperor Napoleon I. The defining feature of these houses is the box-shaped Mansard roof, which was originally made popular by the 17th-century French architect François Mansart.
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Stick Style
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Stick style Victorian houses are constructed wholly of wood and covered in stick-work--wall boards with angular, vertical, and horizontal lines. These houses are rare, but can be identified by their bracketed gables, the elaborate scrollwork that decorates the portion of the house where the two slanting sides of the roof meet.
Queen Anne
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Victorian houses in the Queen Anne style exemplify the Arts and Crafts movement, when artists and builders constructed things by hand. These houses are often nicknamed gingerbread houses because of their elaborate stick-work, bay windows, porches, and turrets or towers, and their whimsical wood detailing.
Richardsonian
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Richardsonian is a style named after Henry Hobson Richardson, an influential American architect of the late 19th century. There are fewer houses than public buildings in the Richardsonian style because the construction involved costly stonework. These houses incorporated arches into the design and windows that get smaller with each successive floor.
Shingle Style
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Inspired by the houses in modest New England fishing villages, shingle style dwellings are the least decorative of the Victorian houses. Shingle style houses have a stone base and sometimes a brick chimney, but are otherwise covered in shingles. These homes also have low, sloping roofs--sometimes the third floor roof reaches down to the first floor windows.
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- Photo Credit Flickr, Shadysidelantern, Bellefield, Creative Commons 2.0
