What Style is Your House: Italianate

Many people who felt that the Gothic Revival style was too eccentric and foreign turned to the Itanianate style. American architects adopted the style in the late 1830s and it became popular for two generations. The style proved to be so adaptable that you can find all kinds of buildings, from simple farm houses to large banks sporting Italianate features.

Inspired by farmouse designs of the Italian countryside, the Italianate house either looks like a cube with a shallow, almost flat hip roof or it is asymmetrical, with very low gable roofs and a square tower to one side. Often you will see additions on one or more sides, giving it a L or T shape. Very wide eaves supported by rows of ornate brackets, and rounded windows and doors are the most distinctive features of an Italianate house. In fact, many families modernized their houses simply by installing brackets under the eaves.

The style became so popular that cities often have entire neighborhoods of Italianate homes, reflecting the area's growth between 1840 and 1870. Look for elaborate wooden ornaments at the roofline, doorways, windows and proches. These ornaments were mass produced and sold by the piece, with brackets going for about three cents each. Look also for round arches in the attic area of a building and in windows over the entrance, cupola, or tower.