In an earlier era when life was simpler, so were our houses. Thecenter-hall colonial suited American families with itsstraightforward arrangement: living and dining rooms on either sideof the entry hall, a small kitchen at the rear and bedrooms on thesecond floor. It all fit neatly into a simple box.
But these days, aspiring home owners also want a large eat-inkitchen, a family room, a home office and a two-car garage. Childrenno longer share bedrooms, spas have replaced bathrooms, the masterbedroom has become a master suite with giant walk-in closets.
We've outgrown the center-hall colonial, in its simple box. Buthave we given it up? No way. Houses have taken on a rambling kind ofshape more characteristic of the Victorian era. But ask any builder:Buyers in the Washington area still want it to look like a Federal,Georgian or Colonial.
And this is true in other parts of the country as well: InCalifornia, for example, where the Spanish mission style is theregional version of a Colonial, new houses bear little relation tothe original, except for stucco walls and the occasional tile roof.
One could charitably call this national trend a stylistic amalgam,but a more honest appraisal would be a stylistic mish-mash.
Though modern living offers the opportunity to try an entirely newlook--stark, sleek and techno--and though architects have long urgedtheir clients in this direction, most people regard it as theequivalent of aesthetic atheism. Instead, we seek refuge in thecomfortingly familiar. If we need a new box, we want it to look likethe old one.
When Americans speak of a modern house, they mean modernconveniences, not modern looks. And techno is not a style but "smarthouse" wiring, with multiple phone lines, Internet connections andenough electrical capacity to run a small office building.
The new houses that are rising all around Washington neverthelesscling to traditional colonial details--much of them no longerfunctional.
Take shutters, for example. Once they were made of wood, louveredand hinged and adjusted to keep out the wind or sun. Now they'revinyl and nailed in place. Even if you could close them, they are notnearly large enough to cover a window.
Why, then, do they persist?
Because they have become "totems," says Washington architectNorman Smith. Revered symbols, they "make us feel connected to thepast," he says, though anybody born at the turn of the century wouldfind them not only unrecognizable but silly. But they might beintrigued at some of the new materials used to create the authenticlook.
The authentic colonial window was made of wood. The small panes ofglass were held in place with wood strips called muntins--which notonly gave a look, but added texture, light and shadow to the facade.Today's more energy-efficient windows have two panes of glass. Amuntin wide enough to hold them, however, is unacceptably big formost people, as well as unacceptably expensive.
In the Washington area, the usual solution is a solid vinyl windowwith vinyl strips between the glass panes to create the "Coloniallook." Some upscale houses have wood windows with snap-in plasticmuntins to create the look. Either way, these windows are easier toclean.
Palladian windows have been transformed in look as well asmanufacture. Historically, the Palladian window, common in theGeorgian period, was a triptych type of window opening. It had threewindows in a row; the top of the center one, which was larger, was ahalf circle. On many of today's houses, the Palladian window hasmorphed into one large, fixed opening above the front door thatbrings light into a two-story entry foyer. Vinyl strips aresandwiched between the two panes of glass to create the divided-light look.
Vinyl, which is also used for siding, isn't the only material thathas crept into the pseudo-Colonials. In many cases, the entire frontof the house is synthetic. Porch columns, window lintels and rooftrim are likely to be made of fypon (molded polyurethane). The housemay have a fiberglass front door. Synthetic substitutes are becomingcommonplace in the interior as well. Flooring that looks like woodbut is made of the same plastic laminate as kitchen counter tops isincreasingly popular.
Both maintenance and cost account for the disappearance of mosttraditional materials such as wood clapboard siding. But some havedisappeared solely because of their expense.
Brick and roof slate--two durable, very low-maintenance materialswith a historical pedigree as long as your arm--are beyond thebudgets of most home buyers today. Brick may be used for the front ofa house, but it rarely appears on all four sides, and even buyers of$1 million or $2 million houses nearly always decide that the cost ofslate is prohibitive.
Once and Again Fads, nostalgia and the reworking of styles fromearlier eras, however, are themselves an established Americanarchitectural tradition. The first fad to sweep the country was theGreek Revival, which started around 1820. In "American House Styles:A Concise Guide," John Milnes Baker notes, "our taste for Greekarchitecture became almost a mania and the style was used for everybuilding type from state capitols to privies." White clapboard houseswith dark green louvered shutters, now assumed to be Colonial inorigin, appeared during this period.
Around 1840, the Greek Revival began to give way to as many aseight overlapping and successive styles, collectively known asVictorian. These exhibited an enormous variety, but all eight stylesin one way or another offered a nostalgic look at earlier eras andexotic places.
The Victorian style known as "Exotic Eclectic" included stylisticelements of far-off lands such as Turkish mosques, Moorish bazaarsand Indian palaces. The Second Empire brought us the mansard rooffrom Paris; this reappeared a hundred years later on everything fromhouses to office towers and strip malls.
The Queen Anne look, which was the most popular of the Victorianstyles, made an extravagant splash at the 1876 Centennial Expositionin Philadelphia. The free-flowing plans with their double parlordoors, corner fireplaces and wrap-around porches, their exuberantexteriors with gingerbread trim, their walls that mixed brick andstone with scalloped shingles, were wildly popular. Victorian-stylebrackets, braces and spindles often were added to "modernize" olderhouses.
The same 1876 Centennial Exposition also brought renewed interestin Colonial houses. This time, however, liberties were taken withproportion and scale; a side porch was added; the windows were biggerand often paired; and small, individual panes were used only on theupper sash.
By 1910, Victorians had fallen out of favor and colonial houseswere being built all over the country.
A Team Effort The birth of suburbia after World War II deliveredhouses to millions of people who had never owned one before. In theWashington area, the early postwar houses generally were small,simple, center-hall Colonials, ramblers or split-levels, but nearlyall of them had the Colonial-style double-hung, divided-light windowswith shutters and usually some brick and clapboard siding.
The average size of a single family dwelling, newly built in thisarea, reached 2,546 square feet this year. As the house has grown,its historical details have became more elaborate.
The process of designing the houses has become more elaborate aswell. David Handlin, an architect in Cambridge, Mass., noted thatwhile once one person could both design and produce all the drawingsfor a house, today a team effort is required.
"Twenty years ago, four or five phone jacks was a luxury," hesaid, "but now people want a whole telephone system with cable andInternet, and they could spend as much as $10,000 to $20,000 on it."One member of the design team has to be an electronics expert.
While historical styles, details and shapes have been reworked toaccommodate added functions and rooms, car storage continues to be anettlesome design issue. Not only do most households today have twocars--sometimes three--the garage also must be big enough toaccommodate a lawn mower, gardening equipment, bicycles and otherstuff. In other words, the garage has become the architecturalequivalent of a 900-pound gorilla.
Architects have rummaged around in the historical closet withoutfinding a solution. There just is no precedent. Thus, with risingland costs and narrow lots, the garage invariably dominates the frontof the house. A big, ugly garage door often takes up two-thirds ofthe facade.
Moving the garage to the back, where it is entered from a rearalley, is one solution. And it has historical precedent.
In the early part of the century, the alley was used as a serviceentrance for the continual stream of people who came daily to middle-class households--the ice man, the milk man, the knife sharpener, thejunk man.
Today, homeowners no longer need a service entrance. Instead therear of the house has become the center of family life, while theformal living room and dining room at the front are so small andrarely used that they have themselves become expensive totems.
Tradition up front, modern life in the back: it's the perfectAmerican solution for the '90s.
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