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Architecture/What Style Home Is This?!

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Expert: Rikki Nyman - 12/9/2010


Question

Indiana House
My husband and I are looking into buying a home in Central Indiana. It was built in 1920, but that's about all we know about it architecturally. The interior has been updated with a few things like a kitchen island and central air and heat. When you walk in the front door, there is a large room to the left with a bay window and a brick fireplace on the outside wall up against the front porch. On the right side of the entrance is another large room. The kitchen is in the back of the house and is also very large. The home has beautiful oak woodwork which needs to be restored. The staircase is right in the center as you walk in the home and makes an L-Shape with a landing in the middle.  The home has 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms and is about 4,700 square feet. It also has some pocket doors and a beamed ceiling. I have looked everywhere and can't find pictures of other homes like it. Can you help? I have attached a picture.

Answer
Hi.  Your house exhibits characteristics of several styles but especially Colonial Revival and Queen Anne. It is actually more typical of the 1900 to 1910 time frame. Companies like William A. Radford sold plans that featured the cross-gabled gambrel roof, and palladian and bay windows similar to this house. If you want a label, I think it would be accurate to call it a gambrel-roofed classical revival.

This type of home was often side-gabled with a centered facing gambrel-gable like this house or a gambrel-front gable. They evolved during the 1910s-20s into what was a smaller and more popular "Dutch Colonial."

The average house size even among the relatively well-to-do was about 1000 square feet until about 1950 when home sizes started to increase. It appears that the rear of this house is an addition? Because records are often missing, it's possible this house is older than the 1920 date.

Hope this helps!
Rikki Nyman
Editor, www.antiquehomestyle.com

Rikki Nyman

Expertise

Residential architectural questions concerning houses designed between 1900 and 1950, where the question pertains specifically to styles, designs, plans, building materials, color schemes, paint colors, interior finishes and so on. I am NOT qualified to answer engineering questions or issues involving construction methods, plumbing, electrical and the like. For example, I can describe what an appropriate color scheme would be for a vintage 1920s kitchen, or sources for plans for Storybook Style houses. I can not tell someone how to replace the electrical wiring in their old home.

Experience

I have been researching old houses and writing about them for more than five years. (See www.antiquehomestyle.com, which is my site.)

Organizations
Oregon Historical Society Architectural History Center, Portland Oregon

Publications
www.antiquehomestyle.com

Education/Credentials
B.S. History, Minor in Architectural Design

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