Residential Architecture

When buyers ask you about the architecture of the house they've fallen in love with, you'll be an expert. Print this out to share with consumers, too.

The first rule for any salesperson is to know your product. Architecture obviously is a key selling point in real estate, and it helps if you can distinguish a Victorian from a Cape Cod. That's why we've developed this guide to residential architectural styles across the country.

Cape Cod--
Some of the first houses built in this country were Cape Cods, and the style hit what was probably its apogee after World War II, when its inherent modesty and simplicity made it popular with early suburban developers. Just about every baby boomer either lived in a Cape Cod - style house or knows somebody who did. The look is basic: square or modestly rectangular one-story houses, with steeply gabled roofs - many with dormers - and unornamented facades; walls are usually of brick or clapboard.

Contemporary -- You know them by their odd-sized and often tall windows, their lack of ornamentation, and their unusual mixtures of wall materials--stone, brick, and wood, for instance. Architects designed Contemporary-style homes (in the Modern family) between 1950 and 1970, and created two versions: the flat-roof and gabled types. The latter is often characterized by exposed beams. Both breeds tend to be one-story tall and were designed to incorporate the surrounding landscape into their overall look.

Craftsman -- Trendy from 1905 to the mid-1920s, the Pasadena, Calif., born Craftsman home customarily resembles a one-story, bungalow style created by two brothers, Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene. Played up in architectural and home decorating magazines of the time, the style quickly spread around the country. Some homeowners even purchased ready-made packages of materials that could be assembled by local builders. Identify the style by its low-pitched gabled roof, overhanging eaves, exposed roof rafters, and full- or partial-width porches framed by pedestal-like, tapered columns.

Federal - Ubiquitous up and down the East Coast, Federal-style architecture dates from the late 1700s and coincided with a reawakening of interest in classical Greek and Roman culture. There's an appealing plainness and symmetry about many Federal houses. Red brick is the most common building material. Doors often have sidelights and fanlights and whatever is going on on the right side of the façade is echoed on the left. Double-hung windows with shutters are common, as is a certain amount of restrained classical ornamentation around cornices, doors, and windows.

International--Initiated by European architects--such as Mies van der Rohe--in the early 20th century, this is the style that introduced the idea of exposed functional building elements, such as elevator shafts, ground-to-ceiling plate glass windows, and smooth facades. The style was molded from modern materials--concrete, glass, and steel--and is characterized by an absence of decoration. A steel skeleton typically supports these homes. Meanwhile, interior and exterior walls merely act as design and layout elements, and often feature dramatic, but nonsupporting projecting beams and columns. With its avant-garde elements, naturally the style appeared primarily in the East and in California.

National -- Born out of the fundamental need for shelter, National-style homes, whose roots are set in Native American and pre-railroad dwellings, remain unadorned and utilitarian. The style is characterized by rectangular shapes with side-gabled roofs or square layouts with pyramidal roofs. The gabled-front-and-wing style pictured here is the most prevalent type with a side-gabled wing attached at a right angle to the gabled front. Two subsets of the National style, known as "hall-and-parlor family" and "I-house," are characterized by layouts that are two rooms wide and one room deep. Massed plan styles, recognized by a layout more than one room deep, often sport side gables and shed-roofed porches. You'll find National homes throughout the country.

Neoclassical -- A well-publicized, world-class event can inspire fashion for years. At least that's the case with the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which showcased cutting-edge classical buildings that architects around the country emulated in their own residential and commercial designs. The Neoclassical style remained popular through the 1950s in incarnations from one-story cottages to multilevel manses. Its identifying Ionic or Corinthian columned porches often extend the full height of the house. Also typical: symmetrical facades, elaborate, decorative designs above and around doorways, and roof-line balustrades (low parapet walls).

Prairie - In suburban Chicago in 1893, Frank Lloyd Wright, America's most famous architect, designed the first Prairie-style house, and it's still a common style throughout the Midwest. Prairie houses come in two styles - boxy and symmetrical or low-slung and asymmetrical. Roofs are low-pitched, with wide eaves. Brick and clapboard are the most common building materials. Other details: rows of casement windows; one-story porches with massive square supports; and stylized floral and circular geometric terra-cotta or masonry ornamentation around doors, windows, and cornices.

Ranch -- Sometimes called the California ranch style, this home in the Modern family, originated there in 1930s. It emerged as one of the most popular American styles in the 1950s and 60s, when the automobile had replaced early 20th-century forms of transportation, such as streetcars. Now mobile homebuyers could move to the suburbs into bigger homes on bigger lots. The style takes its cues from Spanish Colonial and Prairie and Craftsman homes, and is characterized by its one-story, pitched-roof construction, built-in garage, wood or brick exterior walls, sliding and picture windows, and sliding doors leading to patios.

Second Empire -- Popular in the Midwest and Northeast, this Victorian style was fashionable for public buildings during Ulysses S. Grant's presidency, but its elaborate, costly detail fell out of favor in the late 1800s for economic reasons. Second empire homes feature mansard roofs with dormer windows, molded cornices, and decorative brackets under the eaves. One subtype sports a rectangular tower at the front and center of the structure. (See also Victorian.)

Spanish - Most common in the Southwest and Florida, Spanish-style architecture takes its cues from the missions of the early Spanish missionaries - such as the one at San Juan Capistrano in California - and includes details from the Moorish, Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance architectural styles. The houses usually have low-pitched tiled roofs, white stucco walls, and rounded windows and doors. Other elements may include scalloped dormers, windows and balconies with elaborate grillwork, decorative tiles around doorways and windows, and a bell tower or two.

Split Level -- A Modern style that architects created to sequester certain living activities--such as sleeping or socializing--split levels offered an multilevel alternative to the ubiquitous Ranch style in the 1950s. The nether parts of a typical design were devoted to a garage and TV room; the midlevel, which usually jutted out from the two-story section, offered "quieter" quarters, such as the living and dining rooms; and the area above the garage was designed for bedrooms. Found mostly in the East and Midwest, split-levels, like their Ranch counterparts, were constructed with various building materials.

Tudor - This architecture was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and continues to be a mainstay in suburbs across the nation. The defining characteristics are half-timbering on bay windows and upper floors, and facades that are dominated by one or more steeply pitched cross gables. Patterned brick or stone walls are common, as are rounded doorways, multipaned casement windows, and large stone chimneys.

Victorian - Common to some degree almost everywhere, Victorian architecture, which dates from the second half of the 19th century, has two main styles: Second Empire and Queen Anne. The former is big and boxy, with mansard roofs, symmetrical facades, and heavy ornamentation. When Walt Disney decided to re-create at Disneyland the main street of a typical 19th-century small town, the style he used was Second Empire. Queen Anne is a much quirkier affair, with asymmetrical facades, curved towers and porches, protruding bay windows, steeply pitched roofs, and elaborate spindlework ornamentation.