Country Houses And Seaside Cottages Of The Victorian Era

This fascinating book presents a series of 44 designs for vacation homes of varying styles and sizes, created over a century ago by a select group of New York and New Jersey architects. Many of them are two-story, and most were intended to be built on low-to-medium budgets. All of them reflect the ideals of comfort and charm and state-of-the-art technology of the Victorian period. The original publishers compiled a splendid variety of designs, presented them as "seaside and country houses" and included designs for a Victorian club house, pavilion, school house, and a "small seaside chapel." A total of 200 illustrations — including perspective views, front and side elevations, and first- and second-story floor plans — depict these appealing designs. Occasionally the architects have specified construction materials and finishing details such as paint, color, and trim, and in all cases they have included the overall anticipated costs, which range from about $500 to about $9,000. The Victorians, of course, loved architectural embellishments of every kind, and it is no small part of the charm of this book to study the profusion of gables, porches, portholes, dormers, porticoes, chimneys, pinnacles, and more, lavished on even the most modest designs. Above all, the houses and cottages appear to be both comfortable and reassuring, appealing reminders of a gracious age long gone. Those studying and working in the fields of architecture, history, and sociology will find in this wonderful book exuberant examples of a rich and charming architectural style. Those who wish to join the growing number of home builders and restorers re-creating Victorian homes will find inspiration in each of these thoughtful designs.

Reprinted from a rare 1878 offering from a leading Northeastern architectural firm: front and side elevations, floor plans and descriptions of 50 "practical designs of low and medium priced houses," ranging from 2- to 11-room dwellings, most in the cottage style. With complete specifications for two, a sample contract, advertisements, and price estimates.

Rare treasury of floor plans, elevations, perspective drawings for houses and cottages in Queen Anne, Eastlake, Elizabethan, Colonial, and other styles. Large engraved plates also contain scaled drawings of nearly 700 architectural details.

Handsome collection of mid-Victorian home designs reprinted from rare 1874 catalog. Floor plans, elevations, front views, more. 27 designs on 63 plates. Introductory text and specifications.

Designs and plans for constructing country homes with over 130 illustrations depicting interior and exterior designs, perspectives, and more.

Classic photo-and-text survey of extant plantation homes, churches and chapels built between 1686 and 1878 along South Carolina coastal plain. Detailed photographs, fascinating history, distinguishing characteristics of Medway, Middleburg, Exeter, Crowfield, Hampton, The Rocks, Lowndes' Grove, 48 other structures.

Plates are generally for exterior painting, but a few plates are for interiors, i.e. fireplace surrounds, hallways, and ceilings.

For the house lover and the curious tourist, for the house buyer and the weekend stroller, for neighborhood preservation groups and for all who want to know more about their community -- here, at last, is a book that makes it both easy and pleasurable to identify the various styles and periods of American domestic architecture. Concentrating not on rare landmarks but on typical dwellings in ordinary neighborhoods all across the United States -- houses built over the past three hundred years and lived in by Americans of every social and economic background -- the book provides you with the facts (and frame of reference) that will enable you to look in a fresh way at the houses you constantly see around you. It tells you -- and shows you in more than 1,200 illustrations -- what you need to know in order to be able to recognize the several distinct architectural styles and to understand their historical significance. What does that cornice mean? Or that porch? That door? When was this house built? What does its style say about the people who built it? You'll find the answers to such questions here. This is how the book works: Each of thirty-nine chapters focuses on a particular style (and its variants). Each begins with a large schematic drawing that highlights the style's most important identifying features. Additional drawings and photographs depict the most common shapes and the principal subtypes, allowing you to see at a glance a wide range of examples of each style. Still more drawings offer close-up views of typical small details -- windows, doors, cornices, etc. -- that might be difficult to see in full-house pictures. The accompanying text is rich in information about each style -- describing in detail its identifying features, telling you where (and in what quantity) you're likely to find examples of it, discussing all of its notable variants, and revealing its origin and tracing its history. In the book's introductory chapters you'll find invaluable general discussions of house-building materials and techniques ("Structure"), house shapes ("Form"), and the many traditions of architectural fashion ("Style") that have influenced American house design through the past three centuries. A pictorial key and glossary help lead you from simple, easily recognized architectural features -- the presence of a tile roof, for example -- to the styles in which that feature is likely to be found. This eBook edition has been optimized for screen.