30 Popular House Styles and Their Defining Characteristics

Table Of Content

• What Are the Most Popular Types of Houses?
• Dutch colonial revival style house
• The Best Dog Houses for Pets of All Sizes
• Dutch Colonial Revival Style
• Timeless Fusion: How to Blend Vintage and Modern Design According to Experts
• Maximalism in Minimalism: Designers Share 26 Tips for Infusing Maximalist Vibes into Minimalist Spaces

This distinctive house style typically has a wide one-story porch and intricately detailed bargeboards. The roofs of these homes are usually very steep pitched, similar to the churches and other historic buildings of the same style. The Prairie style is often regarded as a true American architectural design due to its roots in America. Popularized by one of America's leading Architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Prairie house plan is famous for its use of strong horizontal lines and contemporary building materials.

What Are the Most Popular Types of Houses?

Antebellum architecture was prevalent in the southern United States from the 1830s to 1860s. Also known as plantation houses, Antebellum combines styles like Greek Revival, Georgian, and Neo-Classical. Tuscan-style architecture originates from the Etruscan people of Tuscany.

Dutch colonial revival style house

Contemporary architecture is often used interchangeably when describing modern style architecture. A wide range of recently built homes are built with Contemporary-style architecture. These homes have inventive designs and simple forms without elaborate ornamentation or detail. They usually have geometric lines, large windows and doors to bring in light, and open floor plans. They often incorporate sustainable and eco-friendly building materials, textures, and components, exposed roof beams, and flat or low-pitched roofs.

The Best Dog Houses for Pets of All Sizes

These Spanish-style dwellings are most common in Southern states, including New Mexico, Texas, Florida, California, and Arizona. The first cottages debuted in Europe as housing for “cotters” or farmhands. The style took its name from a 1932 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art that showed the groundbreaking work of European Bauhaus architects like Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Before World War II, it was most popular in California (where this house by Richard Neutra is located) and affluent Northeast suburbs (such as New Canaan, Connecticut, where Philip Johnson’s Glass House is). A more vernacular version of the style, also known as Bungalow or Craftsman Bungalow, was popularized through the patterns of Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman magazine. The style also grew out of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in the Prairie style at the turn of the 20th century.

Here we’re breaking down the most popular and enduring architectural styles, plus the characteristics that define them. Named after Queen Victoria, Victorian homes emerged in the 1830s and were popular through the early 1900s. They are typically two to three stories and include ornate elements, bay windows, small towers, porches, steep gable roofs and brightly colored facades. A variety of different designs play off these core elements, including more ornate styles like gothic revival and Queen Anne, or less ornate, like the folk style. These homes feature tiled roofs, white stucco walls, warm stone and wood as well as metal work on balconies and windows. Even though most Mediterranean-style houses have an understated look, you’ll often see splashes of color through gorgeous tile work.

Craftsman-style houses

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Indian cultures trace their roots back a millennium before the arrival of the Spanish explorers. Architecture at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, some of the oldest and largest Anasazi villages, show the use of stone masonry and pine timbers. When the Spanish saw the Indian villages in the 16th century they were reminded of Spanish adobe architecture and called the villages and Indians “Pueblos”.

Timeless Fusion: How to Blend Vintage and Modern Design According to Experts

The earliest manor houses were built to house huge numbers of people since families and servants all lived under one roof and often in one huge room. According to AntiqueHome.org, bungalows are quaint, affordable abodes with roots in America’s Arts & Crafts movement. American and British travelers returned home inspired by this new type of multi-family architecture and by the 1860s, New York City’s skyline began to reflect this architectural movement. These high-rise buildings burst onto the Paris real estate scene in the early 1800s when urban planners seized upon the idea of erecting “spatially compact housing” suited to the fast-growing city. The Cape Cod style originated in the 1700s in its namesake city in Massachusetts.

Yurts have a round footprint and can be easily erected and taken down. Their walls and roofs are made from waterproof fabric, and some have polythene ‘windows’ while others do not. Yurts are traditional homes for nomadic people in Mongolia, but in the last decade or so they have become popular in western culture.

In urban areas, a duplex may be built as a single dwelling unit with two floors. Each floor has its own living unit and a small foyer or hallway may provide access to the front door of the lower unit and stairs to the upper unit. A dormitory is a residential building that provides sleeping quarters for multiple people. These rooms may not have any amenities, simply providing a small living space and sleeping area. A condominium is a residential building containing multiple living units, like an apartment building.

Federal-style houses are popular on the East Coast and easy to spot with their brick exteriors and flat facades. The homes are rectangular and symmetrical in their wall and window styles. Federal-style houses have more understated and clean details in comparison to Georgian-style homes. Modern architecture is known for a slightly industrial feel, a far cry from a Tudor or Colonial-style house. Modern homes feature sharp, clean lines, with many of them incorporating geometric shapes.

The split-level is a product of the ranch and still can hold the title, though it has grown to its own acclaim too. Midcentury modern design emerged after WWII from the Bauhaus movement. Midcentury modern homes possess a sleek, uncluttered design that meets an appreciation for nature through large windows along with a mix of natural and man-made materials. These homes feature well-thought-out architectural design that allows function to inspire form.

An apartment is one building that has been divided up into numerous homes. One person or one business will own the entire apartment building and, therefore, all apartments and each apartment is then leased out to tenants. Some apartment buildings feature additional amenities such as a gym, swimming pool, and laundry room, while others are more basic. Each apartment is generally set over one floor, but this is not always the case. Single-family homes are very sought after, and this is the type of American house that the majority of Americans aspire to own.

The original structure was added with a kitchen, free standing library and pools. Ending in the 17th century, the colonies with higher classes started to adapt gentility in the European concept, which are shown in their upgraded taste, dress coding, behaviour and speech. This kind of legacy is still embraced and presented through the symmetrical order of Georgian architecture. If the earliest period of the distinguished achievement in France is the Gothic, and the second on the 18th century, the French architecture’s extended tradition will always be valued.