Architectural Style: Queen Anne

HISTORY

The expansion of the railway system in the United States gave architects and builders the ability to create elaborate residential masterpieces. Doors, windows, roofing, siding and decorative detailing were for the first time mass produced in factories for a reasonable price and made easily accessible.

Although it’s name implies, the Queen Anne was not inspired by European models of history nor their generation. It came from a group of nineteenth century architects led by an English architect, Richard Norman Shaw. Shaw broke away from the contemporary Victorian homes when he designed the first of the Queen Annes. He is thought to be the father of Queen Anne style and he led the revolution in domestic architecture.

The Queen Anne received it’s first major exposure in America at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where the British government constructed several buildings in the style. It caught on quickly, numerous architectural pattern books provided the designs.

The first built American Queen Anne is considered to be the William Watts Sherman house in Newport, Rhode Island. It was built in 1874 by Boston Architect H.H. Richardson. This early design has a half timbered second story.

CHARACTERISTICS

The wealth of Queen Anne details allowed the designer to be completely individualistic, features just simply went wherever, wings, towers, gables and porches popped up in random fashion. It’s artistic style was soon named "bric-a-brac" and gingerbread for the elaborate and plentiful trim applied to nearly every surface. Queen Annes captured the attention and imagination of people across the United States. The architecture became so popular that it was built almost everywhere. Some thought of the style to be in extreme excess, but the majority found it to have romantic characteristics.

The romantic eclecticism is the keynote of the Queen Anne, the style is varied and decoratively rich. At the time of construction it was not uncommon for the houses to be painted with as many as five or six different colors to bring out all the different textures and trim. The fashion was fairly dark colors, along the lines of what we call today, Earth Tones—sienna red, hunter green, burnt yellow, muddy brown, etc.

The homes were generally built with an unbalanced or asymmetrical arrangement of building parts. The windows were a mixture of sizes and shapes including, one-over-one double hung sash, bay, stained glass, and round arched. The Queen Anne window was also common, it was a large pane of glass surrounded by smaller panes, often of colored glass. They have hipped steeply pitched roofs with one or more lower cross gables covered with decorative patterned wood or slate shingles. The shingle patterns were arranged and referred to as "fish scale". Several different wall surfaces were used; brick on the ground story, and shingles or horizontal boards above was a common occurrence. Elaborate chimneys with decorated caps were also among it’s trademarks. Some Queen Annes were built with a circular tower usually offset with a candle-snuffer peaked roof in a prominent corner of the building. Other common features included a shaped verandah, a detailed one-story wrap-around porches that extended the full width of the home, extensive use of sawn ornament to accent dormer windows. Queen Anne interior style could be adapted to houses large enough for the biggest family or scaled to cottages. It often features a cluster of reception rooms around an impressive central hall with entrance and from the exterior gives the impression of may assembled components.

With the arrival of the 1900’s the intricate details of the Queen Anne fell out of favor and most of the colorful structures were painted over in conservative whites.