Get the Look: American Style

There is no doubt that American influences in housebuilding have become far more widespread in this country in recent years. Features such as open plan interiors, vaulted ceilings, exposed rafters, oversized doors, double-height windows and exterior decking have really captured the imagination of self-builders in the UK. In fact, you could say features like this have become so much a part of the mainstream that they are no longer recognised as being ‘American’ in character.

However, features like this are not exclusively American — and we should always remember that many so-called ‘characteristic’ features of several styles of American house – small-pane windows and dormer windows are two excellent examples – were originally imports from the UK!

There is, therefore, a distinct danger if you are attempting to build in ‘US style’ that you could end up with something of a mixture – a patchwork – and wish that you had studied the subject a little more before rushing into building.

Common Mistakes

1. Oversizing of elements

As any architect will point out, houses that arrive in a kit, built using a pre-engineered system, can easily tend towards standardisation and oversimplification. “Windows and other openings in these houses can really disappoint,” says architect Eric Parks. “If there is a disproportionate leaning towards larger openings then this can skew the whole proportions of the house. Windows in partic ular must be positioned according to scale.”

2. Missing out elements altogether

Features such as balconies and verandahs, that would be present in the US version of the house, are missed out at the behest of UK planners. Try and keep them in where possible and argue the case for authenticity.

American Timber Frame

Houses with the feel of the Eastern Seaboard are probably the style of American house that first comes to mind when British self-builders have a mental picture of American-style houses. Like the vast majority of American houses they are timber framed — either using the post and beam method, or ‘stick built’ by the use of prefabricated frames.

With an American-style post and beam house all the framing is pre-machined in a factory. It consists of large vertical timbers (posts) and horizontal timbers (beams) that join together when erected on site to form a complete structural framework. The exterior cladding is then added to the outside, leaving the frame exposed inside the house. With a pre-fabricated frame of this type no interior partitions are needed to support the upper floors or roof, so the building’s interior can be left completely open or divided into smaller rooms. It is, therefore, easy to incorporate a certain number of double-height spaces — a feature much loved by many Americans and an increasing number of British self-builders.

The Americans have a special term for factory-produced timber houses based on pre-formed panels that fit together to form conventional stud wall construction: the term is ‘stick built.’ This is a technique that derives from the late 19th century, when entrepreneurs in the building industry in the rapidly expanding USA saw an opportunity of transforming the house construction business across the nation. The term was adopted because this form of building uses so many small pieces of wood. In this type of timber frame home, multiple interior walls are needed to support the weight of the floors and roof above them.

Houses like this are known for their speed of erection, ease of maintenance, good insulation, light open plan interiors, and large windows, often with half-round, or ‘circle top’ windows.

There are many other styles of house in the US – Prairie, Southern Colonial, West Coast, Federal (akin to our ‘Georgian’ style) and several others – and one of the problems with building in ‘US style’ in the UK is that people tend to mix the styles.

“With this sort of building you really have to think about the problem of what architects call ‘abstraction’,” says American architect Eric Parks, who practises in this country. “Abstraction is the act of removing elements out of a style and moulding them into a new design,” Eric says. “This can work well, but it can also have the opposite effect. The key is not to remove elements in this way without sympathy, understanding, knowledge and great care and attention — all the things a good architect stands for.

“Domestic architecture has always had a close relationship with the climate and the locality, and if you extract an element, or elements, of a style like that of a traditional New England building you have to think about how it will work in a different context. Bad abstraction leads to incoherent design and what I call ‘patchwork’.” To avoid falling into this trap, Eric’s advice is not to think of the American house style you wish to build so much as a product, but as a result of a process of history and evolution.

What seems to happen is that, partly for reasons of planning and partly because of personal taste, a lot of the features that would adorn this style of house in the US are omitted when they cross the Atlantic.

Typical amongst these are shingle roofs, which often get omitted over here, and the use of external balconies and verandahs, which are often left out in the UK for reasons of cost and of overlooking. In addition, this style of house often ends up with far more internal plaster finishes in the UK, whereas in the US the stud walls tend to be left in their raw timber state. “There is far more of a wet finish culture among self-builders in the UK,” Eric says.

Planning Aspects

You are unlikely to find it easy to build in many of these American styles in the UK. Despite the fact that the British (with a little help from the Dutch) gave birth to the Colonial style, with its small-pane sliding sash win - dows, and also to the verandas, so popular in houses of the southern states which origi - nated in British colonies in the Far East, planners still often perceive houses in this style as alien to our tradition.

The main problem appears to be weatherboarding. Except in parts of the country where this seems to be the vernacular as a means of external cladding – much of Sussex and East Anglia, for example – planners do not favour it. You might be permitted to have partial weatherboarding – perhaps one elevation or the upper part of the house at the front – but the permission is likely to be limited.

This not only ‘waters down’ many attempts at a genuine ‘American-looking’ self-build, but is frequently cited as one of the reasons why so few prefabricated kit houses are being shipped from the US to be erected as self-builds in this country.

Another point concerns the cedar shingle roofs that generally accompany them. Unless your self-build is in a very rural situation you will probably have to fight very hard to get permission for them as there is little precedent for them in UK houses.

“The fact is that brick still reigns supreme in this country,” says Canadian-born architect Peter King, who practises in the UK. “So it is often quite difficult to get permission for other forms of cladding. However, I think planners over here are becoming much more liberal in the styles they permit. The main problem seems to be that planners everywhere are overstretched, and there are yawning gaps and inconsistencies in the system.”

Jonathan Cobb of post and beam specialist Timberpeg UK says, “In general I think planners favour US-style post and beam and stick houses in a rural setting. In my experience in the UK you need the right plot in the right place for the planners to be sympathetic to these American timber framed designs.

“The way the planners so often see it is that there are very few spaces where you can put them in a residential area, though a few years ago, after quite a fight, we gained permission to put one on a village green in Surrey, and I think it looks perfect in an English village green setting.”

One limitation that can greatly affect the appearance of American-style timber frame buildings in the UK lies in the fire safety section of the Building Regulations. This imposes strict limitations on the use of combustible walling and roofing materials, such as timber and shingles, when a house is planned to be close to another property.

Overall, the saddest result of the restrictive effect of planning and building regulations in the UK is that American post and beam houses over here often end up with the sort of interior they were designed for – and for which the owners purchased them – but with a highly ‘Anglicised’ exterior.

Many architects would say that because of the British planning system it is hard to build a really authentic-looking American-style timber framed house. The compromises mean that all we achieve as a rule is some form of patchwork and, at worse, pastiche.

Colonial Style

When we think of stick-built and post and beam houses in American style, the picture we usually have in our minds is of the Colonial style, or Colonial Revival style — the most popular architectural style in America’s history and one that has flourished from the 1870s right up to the present day.

It is best characterised by the ‘traditional’ houses of the Eastern Seaboard, in particular New England. And it is this style that so many of the US kit home manufactures seek to achieve. It is characterised by its strong emphasis on the roof, often gambrel or mansard in shape; weatherboarded exterior; heavily empha sised gable ends and dormers; rounded bay win - dows, often of double height; porches, often semicircular, with a balcony above; additional first floor oriel windows and balconies; and multiple light and shade effects, making the maximum use of the timber cladding.

Cape Cod Style

Cape Cod/New England-style homes usually have two levels of living area, and one-and-ahalf to one-and-three-quarter storeys featuring a steep roof slope and dormers. They do not usually have geometr ical shapes, overhang or other ornamentation. Almost all homes that are one-and-a-half or one-and-three-quarters are Cape Cods. They are invariably timber clad.

Saltbox houses are a Colonial style of architecture which originated in New England. Saltboxes are frame houses with two storeys in the front and one in the back, having a pitched roof with unequal sides, being short and high in the front and long and low in the back. The front of the house is flat and the rear roofline is steeply sloped. The sturdy central chimney is a simple but effective focal point. The simplicity and strength of this design, first seen around 1650, continues to make saltbox houses popular today.

Plantation Style

When you envisage a southern-style home, a variety of architectural motifs may come to mind — sturdy white pillars, a grand elliptical staircase, or a sprawling front porch.

But as you may know, there is not just one architectural style associated with the south. Depending on the region, you might see planta tion-style homes, American Federal styles, and even French Creole styles. But southern homes do tend to have one thing in common: charm, and lots of it.

The southern style is often characterised by its stately white columns, expansive porch, and symmetrical shape — derived from Greek Revival and Roman architecture. Think of Gone With the Wind and the Georgia planta - tion home of Scarlett O’Hara’s Tara and you have the picture. However, the more elaborate southern styles also include the Charleston Single — a Federal (Georgian)-style house with a central hall flanked by two, or some - times four, rooms on each level. Houses such as this first appeared in the US in the late 1700s through to the mid 1800s.

West Coast Style

Post and beam buildings in this part of the USA have a self-supporting skeletal structure built out of natural round logs. Typically the walls are framed between the posts, leaving the logs exposed from the inside. The walls are usually filled in using conventional North American stick frame methods, but rather than timber, stone and brick are quite often used for exterior cladding. Houses of this type often have deeply overhanging roofs. A variant on this is the Mountain style, seen particularly in the Western Rockies. Here there is usually a lack of clapboard, the siding being of more rugged, heavily overlapped timber, often used vertically, with eaves projected out. As with the West Coast styles, the roof usually has a generous overhang. The exterior often has far more exposed timbers – for both structural and decorative purposes – than other ‘smoother’ styles.

Prairie Style

This style, which is invariably associated with the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, is known for its low horizontal lines and open interior spaces. It is said that this derived from the Great Plains that influenced the architects at the end of the nineteenth century which gave rise to this all-American form of architecture that, unlike most other styles derives nothing from the ‘Old World’. Prairie style is also known for its low-pitched roofs, horizontal lines with deep overhanging eaves and central chimneys.

Exteriors usually differ radically from their West Coast and Mountain relatives because the style usually has a ‘smooth’ look. This was often achieved by the use of render on studwork or metal lath. And also – compara - tively unusual in the USA – brick cladding. Not all historic Prairie houses were timber framed. Later versions used concrete block quite extensively.

The Prairie style was short-lived in the USA. It flourished from 1900 until the beginning of the First World War and then lost out to the fashion for revival styles.

There are many other styles to be found in the USA. A term that is often heard is ‘Federal style’, which has many overlapping characteristics with Georgian in this country. Arts & Crafts influences are also widely represented in American houses dating from the 1890s. The ranch style is reckoned to be one of several styles that arrived originally from Europe, notably Spain, while the famous adobe earth-built houses of New Mexico derive again from Spanish Colonial influences. French and Italian styles are also unmistake - ably present in many US houses of the 19th century. Italianate styles persisted until the late 1880s and use materials in a way that mimics the stone of their Italian villa and palazzo models. The French-derived Beaux Arts, or American Renaissance, style usually take their forms from historic French chateaux.

American Style Homes:

• A New England-style Dormer House
• An Imported American Kit house
• A New England-style Home

More House Design Guides:

• A Guide to Tudor-style House Design
• A Guide to Arts & Crafts Style House Design
• A Guide to Georgian-style House Design
• A Guide to Contemporary House Design