Can You Identify the Most Common House Styles?
We’ve all been there before: mindlessly scrolling real estate listings, dreaming of finally taking on a fixer-upper, when a unique property suddenly stops you in your tracks. The dormer windows, the wraparound porch, the unique architectural style… wait, what is that style, exactly? To help you identify the kind of house you’re looking at—and to make Sunday drives through new neighborhoods a bit more fun—we’ve rounded up a handy refresher course on some of the exterior styles you’re mostly likely to encounter. From the Cape Cods of New England to the farmhouses of Texas, these are the most common American house styles. (Presented with a twirl of country flair, of course!)
Additional reporting by Janece Maze.
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A-Frame House Style
Triangle shaped with a steeply sloped roof that extends all the way to the foundation, the A-frame style is a popular option for tiny homes. You’ll often find them in snowy settings, as the steep angle of the roof prevents powder from accumulating.
Adobe House Style
First built by the native Pueblo people of the American Southwest, adobe style homes are named for their smooth clay brick walls which work to absorb desert heat. The look traditionally includes a flat roof with rounded edges and deep set windows. On the inside, exposed wooden beams called vigas run across the ceilings and protrude through to the exterior facades, and the floors are often made of tile or concrete.
Barndominium House Style
Coined by Chip and Jo on a now infamous episode of Fixer Upper, the barndominium is, in its purest form, a metal barn that has been converted into a house. Gambrel-style roofs and sliding barn doors (but of course!) are popular features on new builds.
Bungalow House Style
Though similar in size and scope to a cottage (see below), bungalows typically have more of a sloping roofline as well as a small front porch or veranda. The breezy home style is particularly popular on the West Coast.
Cape Cod House Style
Named for the Massachusetts peninsula where they first proliferated, traditional Cape Cod homes are cozy, one to one-and-a-half story dwellings with a steeply pitched roof, a central front door, and windows on either side. (Of course, much grander versions certainly do exist.) Cedar shake roofs and side shingles—left unpainted to better weather salty ocean air—are a hallmark of the nautically minded style, as are, in later iterations, thick white trim around doors and windows. Not necessary, but oft-Instagrammed, are bursts of pink and blue hydrangeas in the front gardens come summer.
Charleston Single House Style
Designed to maximize square footage on narrow lots as well as porch time in the warmer climes, the Charleston single situates the narrow side of the house along the street, while the wider front—typically complete with one beam-lined side porch (or “piazza”) per level—runs perpendicular to the street. A faux front door sits along the street, but it merely welcomes guests to the property lot. The true front door sits at the center of the wider front.
Colonial House Style
As European colonists arrived stateside in the 1600s, they brought with them the architectural styles of their home counties. Structures were simplified due to scarcer building materials, and, in the areas under British rule along the Eastern seaboard, this resulted in what is now referred to as a colonial home. Rectangular or square in shape, the style is anchored in symmetry. An equal number of uniformly sized windows sit on either side of a central front door, and the pitched roof has little to no overhang. A brick chimney extends from the center or side of the house, and window shutters often add to the curb appeal. Subsets of the style include Cape Cod, Georgian, and saltbox, along with riffs influenced by other empires.
Colonial Revival House Style
Take the symmetrical style of a traditional colonial, then add a few more bells and whistles—roof dormers, columns, an entryway emphasized with an eye-catching portico—and you’ve got a colonial revival home. The details still feel classic, but in a dressed up sort of way.
Cottage House Style
Originally a home for rural peasant “cotters” in England’s medieval period, the humble cottage began life as a small abode with one large downstairs room and tiny upstairs bedrooms tucked under a thatched roof. In America, the term has since evolved into somewhat of a catch-all for charming, smaller-sized dwellings, particularly those located in vacation and leisure destinations (i.e. in the country or by the water). That said, the cozy quarters offer inspiration for homes of any size.
RELATED: What is Cottagecore, Anyway?
Craftsman House Style
A direct reaction to formality of Victorian architecture, craftsman homes are designed to evoke hand-hewn feelings of warmth and coziness. Defining exterior characteristics include a low-pitched roof with overextended eaves, which often drape over a front porch lined with thick beams, and bay windows. Inside, you’ll often find thick trim around doors and windows as well as plenty of built-ins.
Dutch Colonial House Style
Thank settlers from the Netherlands for this charming riff on classic colonial structure, which swaps the steeped triangular roof with a roomier gambrel style. The half-split Dutch door, which allows for a closed bottom and open top, also originated with this home style.
Traditional Farmhouse
A farmhouse can mean many things. Traditionally speaking, all it technically needed to be was situated on the acres where its inhabitants tend to the land, but the moniker has since come to denote a one-to-two-story structure, most often longer than it is tall, with a porch that extends along a significant portion of the front facade. (All the more room for rocking chairs!) The design is simple, and the kitchen is the heart of the home.
Modern Farmhouse
A popular option among new builds, modern farmhouse homes often update the classic farmhouse style (see above) with tin roofs with multiple peaks, oversized steel-frame windows, and vertical board-and-batten siding. The aesthetic favors neutrals, with white siding and black windows being the most common combo, and you’ll also see wood beams anchoring the porch.
RELATED: 25 Modern Farmhouse Decorating Ideas for Every Room in the House
Federal House Style
This simplification and refinement of the Georgian house style (see below) has roots in the American Revolution. (After all, you can’t rebel against a British king and still use his name in your architecture.) Look for a square or squat rectangle shape, a flat brick front facade, a fanlight above the door, and minimal ornamentation. (Fun fact: The White House is a Federal-style home!) Though shown here, porches aren’t particularly common.
Fieldstone House Style
Particularly common in New England and parts of southeastern Pennsylvania, fieldstone houses are made from rocks sourced from the land immediately surrounding the property. The stones are kept in their original shape and mixed with a mortar binding material to create the exterior walls, resulting in a uniquely textured appearance that looks born from the earth.
Folk Victorian House Style
Folk Victorian architecture became popular in the late 19th century as a more affordable alternative to the opulent Queen Anne and Italianate styles (see below) of the Victorian Era. Thanks to prefabricated millwork and the increased reach of railroad shipping, middle-class homeowners could order embellishments like turned posts, moldings, and decorative brackets to add detail to simple folk homes—especially the front porches, where passersby would be sure to see them.
Log Cabin House Style
These woodsy retreats are marked by, you guessed it, interlocking timbers notched together at the end. Some styles feature chinking or plaster between beams, while others stack the beams snuggly on top of one another.
Georgian House Style
These grand (often brick, but not always) homes feature classical proportions and pleasing symmetrical details. Front entrances sit flush with the front facade and are often flanked by pilasters, roofs are hipped and buttressed by chimneys on either side, and, if a third story is present, it’s typically smaller than the first two. (In historical Georgians, this level was reserved for servant dwellings.) Look for a fanlight window above the front door, which allows sunbeams to filter into the entryway.
Italianate House Style
If it’s got ornate trim, a flat or slightly sloped roof abutted by a decorative cornice, and tall, skinny windows, chances are high you’re looking at a Victorian Italianate style home. Especially telling, but not necessarily required, is an extended tower, cupola, or belvedere—like the one that tops Mayhurst Estate, an Italianate home turned bed-and-breakfast in Virginia.
Ranch House Style
Popularized post WWII, when returning GIs flocked to the suburbs in search of affordable housing for their growing families, the ranch home is single story, open-plan dwelling with a low-pitched roof. (It is also sometimes referred to as a rambler.) Easy and relatively quick to construct, it remains the most popular house style in America.
RELATED: This Renovated Ranch is Every Texan’s Dream Home
Row House House Style
Common in dense cities, row houses share a wall and roofline with their neighboring house, giving a uniform, connected look to all of the dwellings on the block. Townhouses are similar in that each property is connected to the next via a common wall, but they are often constructed in smaller groupings, which allows for more design variation between each home as well as varying rooflines.
Saltbox House Style
This distinctive New England house style dates back to the 1600s, and its defining characteristic is a lopsided roof that allows for two stories in the front of the house, but just one in the back. The name comes from the salt storage boxes used by early colonists, which were constructed with a similarly sloped lid.
RELATED: Peek Inside a Three-Centuries-Old Saltbox Home
Shotgun House Style
Another tiny home style with major cultural cachet, shotgun houses first appeared in Black communities in Southern cities such as New Orleans in the early 19th century. They’re typically one room wide and three to four rooms deep. The front door opens directly into the living room, and residents make their way from one room to the next through doorways that all line up. Though common lore has long dictated the name came from the notion that a bullet could pass through the front door and out the back without hitting anything, modern historians suggest the word “shotgun” is a derivative of the Yoruba word togun, meaning “house” or “gathering place.”
Spanish Colonial House Style
Common across Florida, California, and other stretches of the country where indoor-outdoor living can happen year-round, this distinctive home style features stucco walls, red clay tile roofs, and smaller-scale windows. Also common: an interior or side-sitting courtyard for enjoying meals al fresco.
Tudor House Style
Inspired by the Medieval and Renaissance architecture of England, sturdy Tudor homes are resplendent in texture and detail. Look for an asymmetrical design, a mixed facade of brick and stucco, overlaying roof eaves and gables, and decorative timbering. Chimney pots, curved front doors, and diamond pane windows often add to the storybook effect.
Victorian House Style
Today, the Victorian designation has largely become synonymous with verticality (structures stretch higher than they do wide), carved roof eaves, intricate gingerbread ornamentation, wraparound porches, and the occasional turret or two. Subset styles of the era include Queen Anne, Italianate, Gothic Revival, and Colonial Revival.
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