Illustrated By Madeline Thatcher
Foreword by James Marston Fitch

New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1980 STATED FIRST EDITION; 298pp; Well illustrated with over 300 faithful line drawings including floor plans, interiors & exteriors (mostly exteriors) and textural descriptions. Concise informative text, illuminating captions. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Very Good condition with fair jacket. Would be fine, but front right corner of the book is discolored from moisture. See photos. Very little other wear to covers. Corners sharp. Hinges and binding great. No musty smell. Fine inside.

Highlights more than 300 individual houses from America's past and present (and) it is enlivened with trivia and winsome tales from 17th Century. A beautifully illustrated book that emphasizes American homes built from 1608 to 1978. Many homes are identified by owner and architect. From the earliest Colonial settlers to the present (publish date). Chapters nine and ten contain many examples of the Greek Revival and Victorian styles. On page 157 is found two drawings of the italian villa style designed by Alexander Jackson Davis (56 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven) and Henry Austin (584 Chapel Street, New Haven).

This phenomenal book is divided into two parts. The first deals with European traditions in American Vernacular domestic architecture. The next chapters treat the classic period styles from Georgian to International. A final chapter discusses recent design developments. Excellent line drawings throughout.

A comprehensive, nationwide guide to style and history of American houses. An excellent and extensive documentary record of the family dwelling and architectural styles in America from Colonial to contemporary times. Highlights houses from America's 17th century and present and it is enlivened with trivia and winsome tales. A richly detailed anatomy of American domestic architecture, from log cabins to solar houses. Style is presented as an expression of cultural, historical, and geographical influences, providing a fascinating, intimate history of American life.

Some of the architects: Lee Porter Butler, Jesse J. Savell, John Barnard, James Kries, Acorn Structures, Venturi & Rauch, Hugh Newell Jacobson, Charles Moore, Thomas F. McNulty, Tasso Katseias, Philip JOhnson, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Edward Durrel Stone, Albert Frey, Frank Lloyd Wright, Lewis Colt Albro, Marston & Van Pelt, Harrie T. Lindenberg, Rovert R. McGoodwin, Cope & Stewardson, John Russell Pope, Stanfor White, McKim, Mead, Frederick Law Olmsted, ...& many, many, more.

Some of the styles covered: American Four-Square, Art Deco, Arts and Crafts, Beaux Arts Palaces, Bungalow, California ranch, Cape Cod, Colonial, Colonial Revival, Counter Culture, Cubic, Dutch, Elizabethian or Half-Timber, English, Federal, Folk Victorian, French Provincial, Front Gable or Worker's Cottage, Garrison Colonial, Georgian, German, Pioneer, French, Gothic Revival, Greek Revival, I-Style, International, Italianate, Log, Mansardic and Stick Styles, Minimal Traditional, Mobile Trailer, Neo-Dutch Colonial, Neo-Eclectic Styles of the 1980, New England Colonial, Prairie Style, Queen Anne, Romanesque Revival, Romantic Revival, Second Empire, Shed Style, Spanish, Split Level, Stick Style, Surface styles, Traditional, Tudor Revival, Two Pen, Upright-and-Wing, Vernacular, medieval echo ... and more. Most homes are identified by location and/or owners.

Partial List of Illustrations
California bungalows, a Japanese and other international styles, etc. etc.

The Newest:

Frank Lloyd Wright

Warren Hicks House, Kankakii, Illinois 1900 Tudor Echo
2 Vernacular Pattern Book Houses
Ward W. Willis House, Highland Park IL 1902 Classic Echo
Robie House, Chicago 1907
Hollyhock House, Aline Barnsdall Residence, Hollywood CA, 1920
Taliesin, Spring Green Wisconsin, 1911-14 rebuilt 1925 Hillside house
Taliesin West, Paradise Valley Arizona, 1938 Desert Camp
Rose Pauson Desert House near Phoenix Arizona 1939
John C. Pew Woods House, Shorewood Hills WI, 1940
Fallingwater, Edgar J. Kaufmann House, near Bear Run Pennsylvania 1936
Goetsch-Winkler House, Okemos MI 1939 Usonian
James Charnley House, Chicago 1892 Adler & Sullivan with FLW designer
Own House, Oak Park IL
William H. Winslow Hs, River Forest IL 1893

Harold C. Bradley Bungalow, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 1912 Shingle Style, Purcell & Elmslie
David B. Gamble House, Pasadena California, 1908 Japanesque, Greene & Greene - Exterior & Entrance Hall
Leon L. Roos Hs, San Francisco CA 1909 Tudor Neuvaeau, Bernard Maybeck
Giseia Bennati Cabin, Lake Arrowhead CA, 1934 A-frame Rudolph Schindler
Ralph Johnson Hs, Los Angeles CA, 1949 by Harwell Hamilton Harris
Warner Luther Dodge Hs, West Hollywood, 1916 Iriving Gill
The Heath Hs, Lovell Residence, Los Angeles, 1927 Richard Neutra
Lovell Beach Hs, Newport Beach CA 1926 by Rudolph Schindler
Architect's own weekend Hs, Long Island New York 1932 Lawrence Kocher
Ulrich Kowalski Hs, Mt. Kisco NY 1934 Edward Durrell Stone
Walter Gropius Hs & Interior Living dining area, Lincoln MA 1937 Gropius, Marcel Breuer
A prefabricated System, General Panel Corporation, NYC 1942 Gropius & Konrad Wachsmann
Concorde 400, Techbuilt Inc., Cambridge MA 1951 Carl Koch
Dymaxion II, Beach Aircraft Co., Wichita Kansas 1944 R. Buckminster Fuller
Peasedome Prefabricated Hs Kit with a Geodesic Dome, Buckminster Fuller's Hs 1959
Dr. Maria Farnsworth Hs, Plano IL 1950 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Architect's own Hs, New Canaan Connecticut, 1949 Philip Johnson
Designer's own Hs, Pacific Palisades CA 1960 Charles Eames - a stock part Hs
Own Hs & plan, New Canaan 1957 Eliot Nyes
W. W. Walker Guest Hs, Sanibel Island Florida 1953 Paul Rudolph
Bruno Grat Hs, Dallas Texas 1956 Edward Durrell Stone
Samuel Riker Jr. Hs, Holmdel New Jersy 1940 Livingstone Elder & Michael Hare
S. Brooks Barron Hs, Detroit Michigan 1957 Yamasake, Leinweber & Assoc
Year Round Vacation Hs, Netarts Bay, Oregon 1942 by Pietro Belluschi, F.A.I.A.
Albert Smith Hs, Stockton CA 1950 Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons
Own Hs, New Canaan CT 1947 Marcel Breuer
Morton Weiss Hs, East Morrison Pennsylvania 1949 Louis I. Kahn
Hs in the Museum Garden in Museum of Modern Art NYC 1949 Marcel Breuer
Own Hs, Rye NY 1955 Ulrich Franzen
Own Hs & plan, Cambridge MA 1958 Jose Luis Sert
Unidentified Hs, 1958 John MacL. Johansen
Samuel H. Herron Jr., Venice Forida 1956 Victor Lundy
Own Hs, Raliegh North Carolina 1955 Eduardo Catalano & Atillo Gallo
Aurthur W. Milam Hs, St. John's County FA 1962 Paul Rudolph
Own, Pittsburgh PA 1963 concrete frame Tasso Katselas
Own, Lincoln MA 1965 Thomas F. McNulty & Mary Otis Stevens
Cyril B. Jobson Hs, Palo Colrado Canyon CA 1962 Charles Moore
Lieb Hs, Loveladies NH 1967 Venturi & Rauch
Tucker Hs, Katonah NY 1985 "
"A Hs Near the Harbor", Bristol Rhode Island 1967 Hugh Newell Jacobsen
R. Saltzman Hs, Long Island 1960 Richard Meier & Carl Meinhardt
The Solar Roof Model 1950 Solar Cape, Saranac NY 1978 Acorn Structures
The Trombe Wall, Vincent Polidero Hs & diagram, Lanenberg PA 1978 A Sunburst Solar Home, James Kries designer & builder
Architect's Own Underground Hs, Marston Mills MA 1973 John Barnard
Own Hs & diagrams, Colton CA 1969 Passive Solar-Variant Homes: The Patented Savell System, Jesse J. Savell, Jr.
Prototype FarmHs, San Joaquin Valley CA, University of CA 1969
Tom Smith Hs, Olympic Valley CA 1978 Lee Porter Butler, Envelope Hs & plan
 

Somewhere In Between

Greyston, Peveley MO c1859 David Wilbur Peat Gothic Revival Cottage
Hs in Pointed Style in Rhinebeck NY 1844
Workers' Row Hss, Boston MA c1850 Vernacular Gothic
Pattern Hs, 1852 Samuel Sloan Elizabethan Villa
Home of A. M. Eastwick, near Philadelphia, 1853 Sloan Norman Villa
Edward King Hs, Newport RI 1845 Richard Upton Italian Style Villa
Olana, near Hudson NY 1872 Studio wing 1891 Persian Villa Frederick Church, Calvert Vaux & Frederick Clarke Withers
Tuscan Villa, 1867 pattern by John Riddell
Unidentified Hs, Springfield MA Italianate
Elizabeth Apthorp Hs, New Haven CT 1837 Alexander Davis Egyptian Revival
Villis Bristol Hs, New Haven CT 1845 Moorish Revival Henry Austin
Orson Squire Fowler Hs, Fishkill NY 1858 octagonal
Dewey-Jenkins Hs, Milwaukee 1855
Amos Merritt Hs, Little Benessee NY c1860 dogtooth octagon
Martin Zezh Hs, Sauk City WI 1931 round Hs
Enoch Robinson Hs, Somerville MA 1854 round
Italian Style Brick Row Hss, Washington DC c1870 demolished
Brownstone Row Hs NYC c1850-90 Tuscan style
Robert J. Milligan Hs Victorian Parlor, Saratoga Springs NY 1853 French taste
Governor's Mansion, Jefferson City MO 1871 George Ingham Barnett French Second Empire
William Wheeler Hs, NYc c1860 High Victorian Italianate
Webster Wagner Hs, Palatine Bridge NY 1877 High Victorian Gothic
J.N.A. Griswold Hs, Newport 1863 Elizabethan Richard Morris Hunt
Jacob Cram Hs, Middletown RI 1872 Dudley Newton Victorian Eclectic
"A Hs in the Eastlake Styly" c1870-80
Governor's Mansion, Raleigh NC 1889 Sloan & Gustavus Adolphus
Dining Room, Fairbanks Hs, Lake Geneva WI 1875 Eastlake Interior Austin Moody
"Design for an Eastlake Cottage" 1881 John C. Pelton Jr.
Henry Hobson Richardson Hs, Staten Island 1868
Row Hss, San Francisco c1885 San Fran Style William F. Lewis probable contractor
Unidentified Eastlake Eclectic
Merion Hs, Trenton NH c1880
William Carson Hs, Eureka CA 1885 Samuel & Joseph Newsom
Watts-Sherman Hs & living Hall, Newport 1874  Henry Hobson Richardson with Richard White
Hs in Comanche Texas
Clevenger-McConaha Hs, Centerville Indiana c1887
Franklin McVeagh Hs, Chicago 1887 Romanesque HHR
John J. Glessner Hs, Chicago 1887 HHR
Louis Comfort Tiffany Studio Apartment Interior, Tiffany Family Mansion, NYC McKim, Mead & White
Hs for Mrs. Patrick Sullivan, Chicago 1892
Hull-Wiehe Hs, Fort Wayne IN c1890 Wing & Mahurin, architects
William H. Crocker Hs, San Fran 1888 Curlett & Culbertson
P.A.B. Widener Mansion, Philadelphia 1886 Willis Gaylord Hale
Romanesque variant row Hss, Washington DC c1900
Dr. John Bryant Hs, Cohasset MA 1880 HHR Victorian Shingled Villa
The Shingled Villa Pattern book Hs, 1927
Shingleside, Swampscott MA 1881 Arthur Little Victorian Saltbox
Rev. Percy Brown Hs, Marion MA 1882 HHR
Kragsyde, Manchester-by-the-sea MA 1884 eclectic castle Peabody & Stearns
Isaac Bell Hs, Newport 1883 eclectic MM&W
William Low Hs, Bristol RI 1887 MM&W
H.A.C. Taylor Hs, Newport 1886 MM&W
Samuel B. Tarrant Hs, Manchester NH c1918 Edwardian
Biltmore, Georgian Washington Vanderbilt Mansion near Ashvilee NC 1895 Richard Morris Hunt, Frederick Law Olmsted French Chateaux
Banqueting Room, Bilmore Hs, Vanderbilt Mansion, RMH & Karl Bitter, sculptor
Henry Villard Hss NYC 1885 McKim, Mead & Whitel Italian Palazzo
The Breakers Summer Residence & Great Hall, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, Newport 1895 RMH
Marbie Hs, William Kissam Vanderbilt summer home, Newport 1892 RMH
Senator William A. Clark Mansion, NYC 1917 J. M. Hewlett of Lord, Hewlett & Hull French Baroque
Composite Row Hs, upper east side NYC early 20th Beaux Arts Manhattan
Alfred Atmore Pope Residence, Farmington Ct 1901 Stanford White
Summer Home for Stuart Duncan, Newport 1918 John Russell Pope
Lyndhurst, Tarryton NY 1838 Alexander Jackson Davis pointed style
John F. Singer Hs, Pittsburgh 1869 Gothic Revival Interior attributed to Samuel Taylor
...and more.

The Oldest

A Cavalier Dwelling, Jamestown VA ca 1608
Plantation Hs, The Tidewater South, early 17th century
Resurrection Manor, Anne Arundel County, Maryland c 1653 enlarged 18th c
A Pilgrim Dwelling, Plimoth Plantation, Plymouth MA c1629
"The Peak Hs", Medfield MA 1680
Wenlocke Chistinson Hs, Talbot Cty MD c1670
Hall & Parlor Plan
Jabez Howland Hs, Plymouth MA, hall 1667
Parson Capen Hs, Topsfield MA 168 jettied
Bacon's Castle, Surrey Cty Virginia c1655 southern manor & cross plan
Springfield Parsonage, Springfield MA 1639
Witch Hs, Jonathan corwin Hs, Salem MA c1675 w/ lean-to addition
Rev. Henry Whitfield Hs, Guilford CT 1639 l-plan
Benjamin Abbott FarmHs, Andover MA 1685 continuous
Typical Seventeenth Century Hall composite drawing
Thomas Clemence Hs, Manton RI c1680 RI stone ender
18th century saltbox Hs, composite & plan
Shanunga or Bersy Carey Hs, Siasconset, Nantucket Island MA c1682 whale Hs
Cushing Hs, Hinghan MA 1720 out-shot
Adam Thoroughgood Hs, Princess Anne Cty Virginia 1640 tudor Manor
The Red Lion, Williamsburgh 1730 Georgian Town Hs
Georgian Cottage, typical Maryland Vernacular, early 18th cent.
Skinner Hs near Hertford NC c1800
Jonathan Brooks Hs, West Medford Ma mid-18th medieval echo
Lord Mayor William Ramsay Hs c1724
Deputy-Gov Jonathan Nichols Jr. Hs (Nichols-Wanton-Hunter Hs), Newport RI 1748 early Georgian (Queen Anne)
Col. Ruggles Woodbridge Hs, South Hadley MA 1788 Federal
Typical Elizabethan FarmHs, 17th century Early American Medieval echo
Queen Anne Hs ca1700-50 Mission Hs, Stockbidge MA 1739 Late Stuart or Baroque
Typical 18th cent.  early Georgian Hs built ca 1849
Joshua Monroe Hs, South Shaftsbury Vermont c1800 Palladian
Jonathan McFarland Houe, Chagrin Falls Ohio c1825 Greek Revival Temple-Form
Lamvertson Hs, Pittsfield MA c1855 Italianate bracketed style
Summer cottage, Cape May NJ ca1840-80 Carpenter Gothic Gingerbread
Greenbriar, Fairfax Cty VA 1868 Garrison Colonial (Builder's Subdivision Hs)
"Hall Hs", Provincetown early 18th One-bay cottage
"Three-Quarter Hs" Brewster MA one-and-one-half bay
"Full sized Hs" Chatham MA two-bay
"Nantucket Hs", Hezekiah Swain_Maria Mitchell Hs, Nantucket 1790/1850 2 story one-and-a-half bays
John Fitzgerald Hs, Alexandria VA c17986-1822 flounder Hs
Bladen's Corth off Elfreth's Alley, Philadelphia PA c1839 Father-Son-And-Holy-Ghost Hs
Early Row Hs, NieuwAmsterdam, after the Dewitt View, 1653 Klokgevel Gable
Typical Dutch Hs, " early 17th Crow Step
John Ellison Hs, NYC Tultgevel or Flemish Gable
Van Cortlandt Manor Ferry Hs Kitchen, Croton-on-Hudson
Telescope Hs, Carvel Hs, Kent Island MD
Belmont, Baltimore early 19th
Archibald Macphaedris Hs, Portsmouth New Hampshire 1723
Henry Chouteau Mansion, St. Loius Missouri 19th
Nicholas Vechte-Jacques Cortelyou Hs, Gowanus NY 1699 Dutch Cross Bond
Abel Nicholson Hs, Salem County NJ
William & Sarah Hancock Hs, Salem 1734 Chevron
Keeling Hs, MD c1700 Inverted Chevron
Harmanus Wendell Shop & Hs, Albany 1716 brick-front
"Bad Shot Gulch", Bodie CA ghost town with false fronts
Hs & Shop, Charleston SC c1840 false fr
Hs owned by Jacob Kochevar, Crested Butte c1890 false
Pieter Bronck Hs, West Coxsackie NY 1663
Jean Hasbrouck Hs, New Paltz NY 1712 Franco-Dutch FarmHs
Van Cortlandt Manor, Croton-on-Hudson
Doten-Kammer based on restored Jan Martense Schenck Hs c1675
Pieter Wyckoff Hs, Brooklyn NY 1639 Flemish eaves late 17th
Kost Verloren, Tenant Hs, Van Renssalaer Manor, East Greenbush NY c1708-33
Jacobus Demarest Hs, Bergen Cty NJ
Richard Vreeland Hs, Leonia NH
"The Lower Swedish Log Cabin", Darby Creek, Upper Derby Township, PA once New Sweden c1654
A typical 2-room plan
Swedish Common Room
Characteristic Scots-Irish Type Pioneer Log Cabin, GA 1840s
...and more.

Excerpts:

Greek Revival
1820-1860

The Greek Revival occurred at one of those moments in time which later generations tend to think of as golden. There was peace, prosperity, freedom - and a future which opened with all the promise of the beckoning mountains, woods, and prairie to the west. After two hundred years of Indian raids, of battles with the French, of two wars for independence from England, of the trials of forming their own government, Americans had emerged from the struggle to find that the day was sunny and the land their own.

When the Greek Revival took hold in America around the year 1820, the entire culture which welcomed it had been classically oriented for over two centuries. Latin and Greek (sometimes taught at home by clergymen fathers) were the basics of instruction beyond the three "Rs." Roman and Greek mythology, while not perhaps so thoroughly familiar as the Bible, was widely known. A contemporary novel or poem was scarcely understandable without a working knowledge of classical myth.

The vocabulary of classical architecture - column, pediment, portico, entablature, cornice, frieze, architrave, modillion, dentil, and so on and on - had thus become the common property alike of the classical scholar, the merchant, the plantation owner, and the village carpenter. The one might have this knowledge in his head and the other in his fingers, but it was there.

The Greek Revival was thus not the superficial fashion we have come to see it looking back through the subsequent revival styles of the nineteenth century. Greek architecture was a new and exciting story told, if not in the native tongue, at least in a thoroughly familiar second language, at precisely the moment when all other tales had grown stale and old.

Thomas Jefferson has proposed the Roman classic as a suitable architecture for his vision of America. But it was the Greek which proved to be the popular choice. Roman sources were indelibly associated with England. In France, Napoleon Bonaparte's fondness for Roman architecture had rubbed off what remained of its bloom. By contrast, Greek architecture symbolized the earliest democracy in the history of mankind. If further impetus were needed, in 1821, the Greek war for independence from Turkey supplied it, engaging American sympathies and making all things Greek a national fashion.

Perhaps most important of all, the Greek Revival resolved what was left of conflict between the native English medieval traditional and the imported Renaissance. In Chapters 7 and 8, we have shown almost exclusively the hipped-roof (and, later, flat roofed) house which was the carrier of the formal Georgian style. But an engraving of Boston by Paul Revere , drawn in 1760, shows scarcely a house of that type. At the height of the Georgian period in America, prosperous Boston consisted of row after row of neat, rectangular, gable-roofed houses - the old, medieval type - Georgian only in their sash windows, balanced symmetry, and classical treatment at the doorway.

The Greek Revival fitted this house like the glass slipper when placed on the proper foot. The temple shape was ideally suited to the traditional gable-roofed house. America's most popular dwelling need only be turned gable end to street for proper attachment of the portico. With this new orientation, and its accompanying colonnade. A modest everyday dwelling gained new dignity, quite in keeping with the changed mood of its occupants.

If a portico was beyond the owner's means, pilasters, or merely a frieze beneath the eaves, and Greek enframement at the doorways could serve the purpose. If nothing more, an existing house might become a reasonable facsimile of Greek marble by the simple expedient of painting it white. Old houses were easily brought into fashion; new houses were not beyond the ken of existing building practice.

Nor was there anything finicky or precious about the style. A Greek portico, especially in the Doric order, was bold, strong, and simple, yet far more impressive with its great two-story columns than the restrained Georgian facade. Gone were the curves and delicate traceries of the Adam fashion, its elliptical fanlights, oval attic windows, bowed rooms. Windows and doorways, even including glass transom and sidelights, were now straight, square, sturdy, and on the level - the self-image of a newly confident and independent America.

Though in style the Greek Revival was a culmination of the classical tradition, technologically it presided over the beginning of America's industrial age. The entire period was one of invention and change. The years between 1820 and the Civil War - the approximate dates of the Greek Revival - saw steamboats on the Mississippi, packet service on the Erie canal, locomotive-powered trains whizzing by at 20 miles an hour, iron plows and mechanical reapers on the farm, and a cast-iron cook stove in at least some fortunate kitchens. If contemporary advertisements are to be believed, a few houses even had complete bathrooms with a tub, mechanical shower bath, and water closet. The Greek Revival dwelling, like no house before it, was entirely up-to-date.

At the same time, it was a pioneer homestead. As Americans pushed beyond the Allegheny Mountains, the log cabin was their first frontier home; but as permanent settlements took shape or prosperity came to struggling plantation owners, the Greek Revival house became the fashionable choice.

In the hands of leading architects, the Greek Revival underwent a surprising "modernization" of both form and detail, resulting in stripped-down designs not unlike the English Regency. A sense of freedom is evident even in builders' handbooks. Minard Lafever entitled his most famous Greek revival pattern book "The Beauties of Modern Architecture." That, of course, is exactly what the Greek style was to the architects and home builders of the early nineteenth century. Architecture was, by definition, classic. This was modern architecture, i.e., the new Greek classic modified and made usable for a contemporary house.

English Hall House

"This two-room dwelling, known as the ‘hall-and-parlor,’ was the yeoman's approximation of an English manor house. In that much larger dwelling, wings were sometimes added at either end of the great hall: one a buttery or ‘bottlery’ for storing wine and food; the other a parlor, or ‘conversation room,’ for the private use of the family. In the cottage version, one end of the hall was simply partitioned off to create a parlor, or a second small room was added to the original house. The parlor was the ‘best room’ as compared to the utilitarian hall. Nevertheless, it probably contained a bed, as did most rooms in those early houses, where families were large and space at a premium."