Architecture of the New England Colonies By Steven Cherny 7A2 ID2

Beginnings of Colonial Style Architecture When New England had just started having colonies, the first colonists built mainly houses that were one room deep with two stories and a central chimney. Another popular style was a one floor long parlor house. These houses used medieval designs mixed in with what we now call Colonial style houses. This mixed design was called post-medieval English style.

Beginnings of Colonial Style Architecture (cont.) In the early 1700’s, after having built these one room deep two story houses, the colonist began adding more to the back of the house for more interior space which resulted in the one and a half room deep saltbox. These houses evolved into the Colonial style home.

Colonial Style The normal colonial style home was symmetrical with one central chimney connected to all the fire places. There are two windows to the side of the main doorway and five windows will be on the second floor. This house was built in about the year 1720 and is located in Farmington, Connecticut.

Saltbox Home The saltbox home design was thought of in 1630 and got its name from its design, it looked like the box the colonists used for storing salt. The salt box house has two floors in the front and one floor in the back, with a huge chimney in the center of the house The second floor would hang right over the first floor and the windows were very small. The door was in the very center of the side it was located on.

New England Large House These new larger houses were made in the colonial style design with five windows on the second floor and four windows on the first, two on each side of the door. These houses were normally two full floors and two rooms deep. They generally had a Georgian style of decoration with classical borders to the windows and the door. The door also had small windows above it, and they were called lights.

Center Hall House The Center Hall House is another Georgian-style home with a center hall with a staircase coming from the front to the back of the house. The house has two large chimneys on top of both the left and right side of the house These houses were also made with large gambrel roofs.

Garrison Houses The Garrison, just like the saltbox, is a two story home with a large central chimney. The only difference between the garrison and the saltbox is that the garrison was built with a second story overhang that covers the first floor doorway. This design originated in England to make more interior space on the second floor and to cover shops and people walking on the streets below from the bad weather that comes and goes. It also protected the nicely designed doorways.

Cape Cod House The Cape Cod house was smaller than the Large House but was way more stable. It was built to withstand the harsh Atlantic winds and storms, thus, being lower to the and only having one and a half stories. When compared to other houses like the Garrison House and the Saltbox, Cape Cod cottages were made of much simpler objects which allowed small crews of men handle the building fairly quickly. They were made of vertically planked exterior walls, which allowed for movement of the house if the beach it was situated on started drifting away or if a better location was found. Even today Cape Cod Cottages are built, although they are modified to include modern inventions.

Hall-and-Parlor House This was a simple one and a half story home with two rooms. A house of this design would be built with a chimney above each gable. Even though the house was small even by English standards, it was used as an early plantation manor house. It had a separate kitchen, dairy, barn, servants’ and slave quarters and other major house parts.

Fun Facts The name Garrison comes from the way the house has jetties (second-story overhangs) like the front of a fortress or a garrison. The New England Large House evolved to become what it was then. It started as the one story on room house, then became the two-story one room deep house, and then the Large House became the saltbox, and then finally it became a two-story two room deep home. The Cape Cod cottage is named after the fact that they were built in Cape Cod. The Hall-and-Parlor House was once called the Virginia House.

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