Corwin House, Salem, Massachusetts, built ca. 1660, First Period English

American colonial architecture includes several building design styles associated with the colonial period of the United States, including First Period English (late-medieval), French Colonial, Spanish Colonial, Dutch Colonial and Georgian.^[1] These styles are associated with the houses, churches and government buildings of the period between about 1600 through the 19th century.

Subtypes[link]

Well preserved New England wooden colonial houses in historic Marblehead, Massachusetts. This architectural style remains popular today for single family homes across New England states.

Several relatively distinct regional styles of colonial architecture are recognized in the United States.

Building styles in the 13 colonies were influenced by techniques and styles from England, as well as traditions brought by settlers from other parts of Europe. In New England, 17th-century colonial houses were built primarily from wood, following styles found in the southeastern counties of England. Dutch Colonial structures, built primarily in the Hudson River Valley, Long Island, and northern New Jersey, reflected construction styles from Holland and Flanders and used stone and brick more extensively than buildings in New England. In Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, a style called "Southern Colonial" is recognized, characterized by the hall and parlor and central-passage house types, which often had large chimneys projecting from the gable-ends of the house. Along the lower Delaware River, Swedish colonial settlers introduced the log cabin to America. A style sometimes called Pennsylvania colonial appeared later (after 1681) and incorporates Georgian architectural influences. A Pennsylvania Dutch style is recognized in parts of southeastern Pennsylvania that were settled by German immigrants in the 18th century.^[2]

Early buildings in some other areas of the United States reflect the architectural traditions of the colonial powers that controlled these regions. The architectural style of Louisiana is identified as French colonial, while the Spanish colonial style evokes Renaissance and Baroque styles of [[Spain] n]] and Mexico; in the United States it is found in Florida, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and California.^[2]

First Period is a designation given to building styles used in the earliest English settlements at Jamestown, Virginia (1607) and Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620) and later in the other British colonies along the Eastern seaboard.

These buildings typically included details including steep roofs, small casement leaded glass windows (usually due to a scarcity of glass in the colonies), rich ornamentation (in the more expensive house only, of course) and a massive central chimney. To maximize natural light in northern climes, early houses faced southeast, regardless of a building's alignment to the road. Conversely, in southern colonies, houses faced northwest to minimize the sun's heat.^[3]

French Colonial[link]

Bequette-Ribault House in Ste. Geneviève, Missouri, built 1778, French colonial

Developed in French-settled areas of North America beginning with the founding of Quebec in 1608 and New Orleans, Louisiana in 1718, as well as along the Mississippi River valley to Missouri.

The early French Colonial house type of the Mississippi River Valley region was the "poteaux-en-terre", constructed of heavy upright cedar logs set vertically into the ground. These basic houses featured double-pitched hipped roofs and were surrounded by porches (galleries) to handle the hot summer climate.

By 1770, the basic French Colonial house form evolved into the "briquette-entre-poteaux" (small bricks between posts) style familiar in the historic areas of New Orleans and other areas. These homes featured double louvred doors, flared hip roofs, dormers and shutters.^[4]

Spanish Colonial[link]

Gonzalez-Alvarez House, St. Augustine, Florida, built 1723, Spanish colonial

Developed with the earlier Spanish settlements in the Caribbean and Mexico, the Spanish Colonial style in the United States can be traced back to St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest established city in the country, founded in 1565. The early type of dwelling in Spanish Florida was the "board house", a small one-room cottage constructed of pit-sawn softwood boards, typically with a thached roof. During the 18th century, the "common houses" were covered whitewashed lime mortar with an oyster shell aggregate. Typically two-story, the houses included cooling porches to accommodate the Florida climate.^[5]

The style developed in the Southwest with Pueblo design influences from the indigenous Puebloan peoples architecture.

In Alta California, present day California, the style developed differently, being too far for imported building materials and without skilled builders, into a strong simple version for building the missions between 1769 and 1823. Ranchos were typically built of adobe.

Dutch Colonial[link]

Bronck House, Coxsackie, NY, built 1663; Dutch Colonial

Developed from around 1630 with the arrival of Dutch colonists to New Amsterdam and the Hudson River Valley in what is now New York.^[6] Initially the settlers built small, one room cottages with stone walls and steep roofs to allow a second floor loft. By 1670 or so, two-story gable-end homes were common in New Amsterdam.^[7]

In the countryside of the Hudson Valley, the Dutch farmhouse evolved into a linear-plan home with straight-edged gables moved to the end walls. Around 1720, the distinctive gambrel roof was adopted from the English styles, with the addition of overhangs on the front and rear to protect the mud mortar used in the typically stone walls and foundations.^[8]

German Colonial[link]

Developed after about 1675, when the Delaware River Valley area (Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware) was settled by immigrants from Sweden, Finland, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and several other northern European nations. The early colonists to this region adapted the "half-timber" style of construction then popular in Europe, which used a frame of braced timbers filled-in with masonry. The "bank house" was a popular form of home during this period, typically constructed into a hillside for protection during the cold winters and hot summers of the region.

The two-story "country townhouse" was also common around Pennsylvania during this time.^[9]

Georgian (New England) Colonial[link]

Josiah Dennis House, Dennis, Massachusetts, built 1735, Georgian colonial

Georgian buildings, popular during the reign of King George III in England were ideally in brick, with wood trim, wooden columns and entablatures painted white. In the United States, however, one found both brick buildings as well as those in wood with clapboards. They were usually painted white, though sometimes a pale yellow. This differentiated them from most other structures that were usually not painted.

A Georgian colonial house usually has a formally-defined living room, dining room and sometimes a family room. The bedrooms are typically on the second floor. They also have one or two chimneys that can be very large. Also the stone walls of the structure would be made two feet in width. This was common because of the lack of wooden frames in the structures.

See also[link]

• List of house types
• List of house styles
• Colonial Revival architecture
• Spanish Colonial Revival architecture
• Federal architecture
• Saltbox
• Cape Cod (house)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Historic Home - New England Antique Real Estate
• Wells-Thorn House, Deerfield, Massachusetts
• About: Colonial Houses
• Examples of Colonial House style at Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia
• Examples of Colonial House style at Colonial Salem, Massachusetts
• The Restoration of a Colonial House in Virginia
• Colonial House PBS series.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2011)

Robert Joseph "Bob" Vila (b. June 20, 1946) is an American home improvement television show host known for This Old House (1979–1989), Bob Vila's Home Again (1990–2005), and Bob Vila (2005–2007).

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

Vila, a Cuban American native of Miami, Florida, received a Bachelor degree in entomology from the University of Florida in 1969. After graduating, he served as a volunteer in the Peace Corps, working in Panama from 1971 to 1973.^[1]

Career[link]

Vila was hired as the host of This Old House in 1979 after receiving the "Heritage House of 1978" award by Better Homes and Gardens, for his restoration of a Victorian Italianate house in Newton, Massachusetts.^[2] On This Old House, Vila appeared with carpenter Norm Abram as they, and others, renovated houses. In 1989 he left the show under controversial circumstances. Some cite the reason as being a series of conflicts with This Old House executive producer Russell Morash arising from his involvement with outside commercial endorsements,^[3] while others cite a specific instance- Vila's commercial work for New Jersey-based Rickel and the subsequent retaliatory pulling of underwriting from Rickel's competitor Home Depot and lumber supplier Weyerhaeuser- as the reason behind his departure.^[4] He was replaced by Steve Thomas.

After leaving This Old House, Vila became a commercial spokesman for Sears, and beginning in 1990 he hosted Bob Vila's Home Again (known from 2005 on as Bob Vila), a weekly-syndicated home improvement program. The series ran for sixteen seasons in syndication before it was canceled by distributor CBS Television Distribution due to declining ratings.^[5] Vila has also appeared on various episodes of the situation comedy Home Improvement as himself, where main character and cable TV host Tim Taylor (played by Tim Allen) saw him as a rival and went to great lengths to try to beat Vila at things, which he never succeeded in doing. Vila also made a cameo in the 1993 comedy spoof Hot Shots! Part Deux.

Vila has written ten books, including a five-book series titled Bob Vila's Guide to Historic Homes of America. As of 2006, he still appears regularly on television. He can also be seen on the Home Shopping Network, selling a range of tools under his own brand.

Other productions[link]

Bob Vila's less widely known productions include Guide to Historic Homes of America (1996), In Search of Palladio, (1996) for A&E, and Restore America for HGTV.

Historic Homes of America[link]

Guide to Historic Homes of America (1996)^[6] included two-hour segments on each of four major regions of the United States: the Northeast, including New England and the Mid-Atlantic States,^[7] the South, the Midwest and the West.

The Northeast

• Morris-Jumel Mansion overlooking Yankee Stadium in Washington Heights, Manhattan
• Dyckman House on Broadway in Upper Manhattan
• Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts.
• Strawbery Banke restoration in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
• Olana - "a palatial amalgam of Middle-Eastern and European influences."^[6]

The Mid-Atlantic States

• Chesapeake Bay and Annapolis, Maryland - William Paca House and Hammond-Harwood House
• New Castle, Delaware - George Read II House, built by the son of George Read
• Baltimore, Maryland - Homewood House on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus
• Washington, D.C. - Decatur House on President's Park and Tudor Place in Georgetown

The South

• Thomas Jefferson

• University of Virginia - ten residential pavilions surround the great, terraced Lawn.
• Ash Lawn-Highland
• Poplar Forest - octagonal house filmed while undergoing complete restoration
• Monticello - includes Dome Room at top of building (not open to the public) and Honeymoon Cottage.

• Natchez, Mississippi

• House on Endicott Hill - early trader's house
• Rosalie - Federal architecture mansion^[8] with John Henry Belter^[9] furniture and a panoramic view of Mississippi River.
• Stanton Hall - "perhaps the grandest Greek Revival house anywhere."^[6] Designed by Captain Thomas Rose.^[10]
• Longwood - begun in 1860 by Samuel Sloan. Never finished: construction halted in April 1861.^[11]

• Texarkana, Texas - the Ace of Clubs House.^[12]

The Midwest and West

• Ellwood House - built by barbed wire entrepreneur Isaac L. Ellwood in DeKalb, Illinois.
• Frank Lloyd Wright

• Dana-Thomas House in Springfield, Illinois. "It's richer in detail than any other Wright home."^[6]
• Fallingwater in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains

• Cooper-Molera Adobe - early Spanish Colonial owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Monterey State Historic Park.
• Filoli - Woodside, California in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Designed by Willis Polk.
• Tor House^[13] - stone house and tower overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, built by Robinson Jeffers.

In Search of Palladio[link]

In Search of Palladio (1996) is a three-part, six-hour study of the work and lasting influence of the 16th-century architect Andrea Palladio. Palladio designed various types of buildings, but the series concentrates on his domestic architecture. (See also: Palladian Villas of the Veneto).

I. Villas of the Veneto

• Villa Giustinian, Roncade. - For Vila this building (not by Palladio) provides the context for Palladio's innovative thinking - gothic battlements, portcullis and stone walls concealing a Renaissance palace and farm buildings.
• Villa Pisani^[14] in Montagnana - a descendant of the original owners served as Vila's guide.
• Villa Cornaro - A suburban villa on a town street, a palatial residence which was also an on-site place of business for running a large farming enterprise.
• Villa Barbaro.
• Villa Emo - For Vila this is "perhaps the most dramatic farmhouse ever built".
• La Rocca Pisana - spectacular hilltop belvedere by Palladio's pupil Vincenzo Scamozzi.

II. The Palladians in England and Ireland

• London: Chiswick House, Marble Hill House and Stourhead.
• Bath, Somerset: Queen Square,^[15] The Circus and the Royal Crescent.
• Republic of Ireland: Casino at Marino - "the architectural equivalent of a Fabergé egg".
• Northern Ireland: Castle Ward - overlooking Strangford Lough with both Palladian and Gothic facades and interiors.

III. The Palladian Legacy in America

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Mount Pleasant.
• Marblehead and Waltham, Massachusetts: Jeremiah Lee Mansion and Gore Place
• Hudson Valley, New York: Boscobel House Museum - purchased in 1955 for thirty-five dollars. Meticulously restored, situated on a bluff on the east bank of the Hudson River opposite the United States Military Academy at West Point.^[16]
• Hartford, Connecticut: Austin House - built for Wadsworth Atheneum director Arthur Everett Austin, Jr.
• South Bend, Indiana. In Indiana Vila looks at University of Notre Dame architectural school "where Palladio and classical architecture are taken seriously indeed", Vitruvian House^[17] designed by Thomas Gordon Smith and Villa Indiana designed by Duncan G. Stroik.^[18]

Restore America[link]

Restore America consists of fifty one-hour segments which explore historic preservation and building restoration in each of the fifty U.S. states. Anticipating the turn of the 3rd millennium, it was first broadcast on HGTV between July 4, 1999 and July 4, 2000.^[19]

Bibliography[link]

Bob Vila has written two dozen or more books, which include:

• 1980: This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-17704-0.
• 1990: Bob Vila's Guide to Buying Your Dream House. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-90291-8.
• 1993-1994: Bob Vila's Guides to Historic Homes of America. New York: Quill (HarperCollins imprint).

• Historic Homes of New England. ISBN 0-688-12493-3.
• Historic Homes of the South. ISBN 0-688-12492-5.
• Historic Homes of the Midwest and Great Plains. ISBN 0-688-12495-X.
• Historic Homes of the West. ISBN 0-688-12496-8.
• Historic Homes of the Mid-Atlantic. ISBN 0-688-12494-1.

See also[link]

• List of Famous Cuban-Americans

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bob Vila's Official Website
• Bob Vila Video Channel on BobVila.com
• Bob Vila Biography at bobvila.com
• Bob Vila TV Show at bobvila.com
• Bob Vila's Home Again at bobvila.com
• Bob Vila Contractor Referral Website
• Bob Vila's Profile on LegendaryLife.com
• Bob Vila at the Internet Movie Database