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09 · American Vernacular & Regional

Colonial Revival

c. 1880–1960

America quoting its own past: symmetrical fronts, shuttered windows, and a front door dressed with fanlight, sidelights, or a small columned porch.

Look for

Symmetrical facade Portico Fanlight
Governor's Palace, Williamsburg, Virginia: an example of Colonial Revival architecture
Governor's Palace, Williamsburg, Virginia. Photo: Ron Cogswell, CC BY 2.0
Williamsburg Inn, Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg Inn Williamsburg, Virginia · SKM2000, CC BY-SA 3.0
Winterthur Museum, Winterthur, Delaware
Winterthur Museum Winterthur, Delaware · Photo by and (c)2007 Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man), CC BY-SA 2.5
Woodrow Wilson House, Washington, D.C.
Woodrow Wilson House Washington, D.C. · APK, CC BY-SA 4.0
Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
Dumbarton Oaks Washington, D.C. · Boucher, Jack E. (as "creator" of the work), National Park Service, US Department of the Interior., Public domain

what it is

Colonial Revival houses copy the Georgian and Federal houses of 18th- and early 19th-century America. The typical house is a two-story rectangle with a symmetrical front, a central door, and double-hung sash windows with shutters. Most decoration is at the front door, which may have a fanlight (a half-round window above it), sidelights (narrow windows beside it), a pediment, or a small columned porch. Roofs are gabled, hipped or gambrel, with two slopes on each side.

Revival houses are usually larger than their models and freer with details. Common departures are paired windows, side porches, attached garages and doorways that combine several colonial features. McKim, Mead & White's H. A. C. Taylor House in Newport, Rhode Island (1885-1886, demolished 1952), was a symmetrical cube with a single-story Ionic portico between Palladian windows. Lowell House at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1930), is a brick Georgian Revival dormitory with a domed bell tower. Dutch Colonial houses, a related branch, use gambrel roofs.

how to spot one

Symmetrical facade A facade, or main front, whose left and right halves mirror each other, usually with the main door at the center. It is standard on Georgian, Federal, Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts buildings. Portico A porch at a building's main entrance with a roof carried on columns, often topped by a pediment (a low triangle). It is common on Neoclassical, Greek Revival and Palladian buildings. Fanlight A half-round or half-oval window above a door, divided by bars that radiate from the bottom center. It lights the entrance hall of Georgian and Federal houses.

Also look for

Sash windowPedimentClapboard sidingDormer

history

Interest in early American buildings grew after the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. In the 1880s architects, among them McKim, Mead & White, began designing new houses with colonial details; the Taylor House in Newport was one of the first large examples. The style drew mainly on Georgian and Federal houses, with smaller borrowings from Dutch Colonial and post-medieval English buildings.

Small numbers of Colonial Revival houses were built from about 1880 to 1910. The style was most popular from 1910 to 1930, when, by one estimate, about 40 percent of American houses were built in it. In 1928 W. A. R. Goodwin and John D. Rockefeller Jr. announced the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, led by the architects Perry, Shaw & Hepburn, and the project influenced Colonial Revival houses and gardens for decades. Simplified Colonial Revival houses were built in large numbers from the 1950s to the early 1960s, and many New Traditional houses built today use its features.

where to find it

Virtually every American suburb, New England town centers, and showcase restorations like Colonial Williamsburg.

easy to confuse with

Royal Crescent, an example of Georgian Georgian Disciplined brick symmetry: sash windows in even rows, a paneled door with a fan shaped window above, and quiet classical trim. Massachusetts State House, an example of Federal Federal Refined American Georgian: oval fanlights over doors, slender proportions, and delicate garland ornament.