American Housing Styles

1
American Housing Styles
Home Environment Division 7 Decatur County
Smyrna Guys Gals Aaron Mang
2
Links From The Past
Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
3
Native American Homes

• Influences
• Environment
• Culture

• Characteristics
• Simple structures, dirt floors
• No windows or chimneys
• Dark and crowded
• Little furniture
• Possessions stored on shelves hung from walls

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
4
Native American Homes

• Hunting/gathering
• Easily constructed
• Easily carried

• Wigwam

• Tepee

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
5
Native American Homes

• Permanent homes

• Longhouse
• Iroquois

• Pueblos
• Spanish for villages
• Built on top of each other into cliffs and caves
• Adobe sun-dried clay bricks

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
6
The First Colonists

• No shelter upon landing
• Had few tools and materials
• Followed native people examples
• Most were temporary
• Huts of bark and branches
• Shed like roofed house built into the side of a
  hill

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
7
Early American Period 1640-1720

• Permanent homes patterned after ones left behind
• Modifications made to suit weather
  conditions/terrain
• More people meant workforce became more
  specialized

• Local material used
• Wood in New England
• Local stone
• Brick making clay

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
8
English Settlements

• Half-timbered houses
• Wood frame of the house formed part of outside
  wall
• Spaces between beams filled in with brick or
  plaster
• Thatch roofs (bundles of reeds or straw)
• Huge chimney served one or more fireplaces
• Windows small reduced heat loss and glass was
  expensive

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
9
English Settlements

• Northeastern Colonies Cape Cod Houses

• Simple rectangular design
• Central chimney
• Pitched roof (gabled roof)
• Ell-extension built at right angles to the length
  of structure added as families grew

• Little usable space on second floor
• Dormer windows added
• Allowed for interior space for full-sized rooms

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
10
Salt-box

• Began as a two-story pitched roof house
• Need for extra space-added additional set of
  rooms along the back
• Roof line down to cover the addition
• Long slope similar to sloping cover on the wooden
  saltboxes used in colonial kitchens

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
11
Garrison House

• Second story that overhangs the first story
• First used on forts or garrisons to prevent
  attackers from scaling the walls

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
12
German Settlements

• German
• Mostly settled in Southeastern PA
• Large, durable houses of wood and quarry stone
• Entry into first-floor kitchen
• Some had an abbreviated roof or hood between
  1st and 2nd stories

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
13
Dutch Settlements

• Dutch
• First settlements in New Amsterdam (NY)
• Stone and brick/ houses large by colonial
  standards
• Known for decorative brickwork and intricate
  stepped gables

• Distinctive roof Gambrel
• Metal gutters, small windows with sliding
  shutters
• Dutch door-door divided in half horizontally

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
14
Spanish Settlements

• Florida and southwest
• Early homes built from coquina, a soft porous
  limestone composed of shell coral
• Rectangular with balconies that faced the street
• Kitchens often separate
• Interior simple and whitewashed plaster walls,
  beamed ceilings, earthen floors
• Tile on roof

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
15
Spanish Settlements

• Southwest
• Adobe walls, flat roofs, rough-hewn beams
  projecting through the outside
• Walls and deep-set windows

• California
• Covered with adobe, brick, or stucco
• Stucco plaster material made with cement, sand,
  lime
• Rounded archways and windows
• Red tile roofs

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
16
Swedish Settlements

• American log cabin has Swedish origins
• Primitive, small building
• Sometimes divided into 2 rooms with an attic
  above
• Originally roof was of bark or thatch
• Wood shingles used later
• Modified from one-room to two-rooms connected
  with breezeway
• Known as a dog-trot

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
17
Swedish Settlements
Dog-trot log cabins
Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
18
French Settlements

• St. Lawrence River
• Stone or wood with high, steep roofs common in
  French country
• Small closed windows with heavy wooden shutters
• Closed to protect the occupants from cold weather

• Mississippi Valley
• Adaptations made for hot and humid weather
• Porch added covered by a broad roof extending
  around the house
• Improved air circulation
• Usually white
• Rooms had many doors and windows for air flow

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com
19
French Settlements

• Pictures

Aaron Mang, Greensburg High School, 1000 E.
Central, Greensburg, IN 47240 (psmang_at_msn.com