Centre County Architecture

But, architecture in the new century increasingly began to move away from Victorian ornateness. Ushered in were ideas that focused on a simpler style and the use of pre-machine age "honest" materials, based on handicrafts and on decorative arts from the past. This was a conscious response to what England and eventually the American Arts and Crafts movement perceived as the negative effects of industrialized production and the distancing of workers from their crafts. Potential home owners were encouraged to become full participants in the planning and execution of their house designs in order to meet their specific needs. The house setting and its landscape surroundings also were considered important to the design.

Prairie Style

One of these new American styles of domestic architecture, originating in Chicago and the midwest before the first World War, was influenced by and reflected the Prairie School designs of Frank Lloyd Wright and his associates. These architects were attempting to define a truly American residential style, rather than one based on earlier European precedents. The style was low and horizontal, with low-pitched, hipped roofs, and overhanging eaves. These houses featured a simplicity in design and lack of ornamentation, and were meant to be open to air and light and to mirror the flatness of the prairies of the midwest. Built with non-traditional materials in a non-traditional style, they often were more expensive than most homeowners could afford and had limited popularity.

American Foursquares

Variations on the design, however, became very popular. The American Foursquare is a vernacular version of the Prairie School Style that was designed for a growing middle class market. It is a simple square two-story house with a low-pitched, hipped roof and widely overhanging eaves. Its centered or off-centered front entrance was the focal point of the front facade, and it often had a front and sometimes side-hipped dormers in its pyramid-shaped roof. The interior and exterior spaces of these houses were meant to be linked by a full-width first-floor front porch with massive, square porch supports.

Bungalows

The popularity of this style, found throughout Centre County and across the country, suggests that many buyers agreed with the 1923 mail-order catalog description by the Gordon- Van Tine Co. of Davenport, Iowa, "There is nothing that answers your purpose so well, if room is required, as the big, square house. The exterior is pleasing ... The broad front porch with the big round columns, and the wide cornice, with the dormer, lend to the exterior the effect of greater breadth and height."

While the Prairie Style originated in the midwest, the Bungalow Style's popularity rapidly spread through published building plans east from California . These one or one-and-a-half story houses, while of limited size, were affordably priced and offered efficient and adequate space for a small family. Sloping roofs, held up by heavy supports, extended over large open front porches. An informal living room served as the core of the house, while the adjoining porch offered a sheltered space that was easily accessible to the yard and garden. Often built on modest-sized lots, these bungalows were set low to the ground and nestled in to blend with the landscape

Craftsman Bungalows

The natural quality of materials and colors were emphasized in these larger variations of traditional bungalows – textured and ornamental stonework such as cobblestone, wood stained in earth tones, and finishes in stucco or shingles. Exposed roof beams, projecting rafters, and wooden roof supports also were used to highlight the natural, or "honest", materials that were being offered in a simple and forthright way. Built-in furniture, and a large fireplace that was central to the house and its owners, are other characteristics of the Craftsman Bungalow style.

Classical themes and accurate interpretations of European styles became the basis for a third style of residential architecture across the country in the early part of the 20th century, reflecting a nostalgia for the past. Large and elaborate period houses, similar to those designed by architectural firms for wealthy clients in eastern cities, were designed in State College by area architects for national fraternity associations. In an eight-year period, 1925-1933, more than twenty such houses of between 7,000 and 15,000 square feet were built, mirroring historic examples, many on large lots with appropriate landscaping. They provide significant examples of Colonial Revival, Neoclassical, Tudor Revival, and other historic styles.

At the same time, smaller period-style houses were being built in State College, Bellefonte, and elsewhere in the County offering a wide historical spectrum of European and Colonial American housing styles. While occasionally built with correct proportions and details that reflected the historic accuracy of earlier buildings, more often these smaller houses borrowed designs or motifs to suggest a specific style. They were designed to be both practical and artistic, combining modern convenience with comfortable living. They were generally built of wood frame construction, but often were finished with stonework or brickwork exteriors using new and inexpensive methods for adding veneers. Gardens and landscape settings continued to be important considerations to new home owners.

Colonial Revival

Early twentieth century Colonial Revival-style homes mirror many of the features of their Georgian-style predecessors – two stories in height with the ridge pole running parallel to the street, a symmetrical front facade with an accented doorway and evenly spaced windows on either side of it. But there are specific features that identify them as twentieth century houses rather than those dating from the early 1800s. They included extra elaborate front doors, often with decorative crown pediments and overhead fanlights and sidelights, but with machine-made woodwork that had less depth and relief than earlier handmade versions. Window openings, while symmetrically located on either side of the front entrance, were usually hung in adjacent pairs or in triple combinations rather than as single windows. Side porches or sunrooms were common additions to these homes, introducing modern comforts to an earlier housing style.

Dutch Colonial

The use of gambrel roofs, unique with Dutch Colonial houses, was influenced by and captured the spirit of the early Dutch homes of New York State. Large, long shed dormers ran parallel to the roof's ridge line on both the front and the rear of these buildings. The use of mixed facade materials was characteristic with the Dutch Colonial style – stone or brick veneer for the first floor, with wooden shingles or stucco for the upper story. Other style features included paired windows with window boxes, shutters, a small porticoed front entrance, and a side sunporch. According to architects of the period, this style was popular because of its modern features, multiple rooms, vestibules, and a simple approach to decoration. The Dutch Colonial house peaked in popularity in the 1920s; examples are still evident in older residential neighborhoods across the country. A popular mail-order style, Sears Roebuck & Co. had more than twenty-seven different models.

English Tudor Revival

Based on late nineteenth century Tudor cottages of the English countryside, this popular American style of the 1920s and 1930s ranged from large, rambling, asymmetrical, and historically accurate fine country estates to tiny picturesque cottages. Large versions with superior detail and distinctive massing are well represented in State College's fraternity district, and in a few unique single family county homes. Characteristic features included a steeply pitched slate roof with steep cross gables; a combination of coursed (layered in horizontal rows) rubblestone, brick, and stucco covering the frame construction of the building; massive, sculptured front chimneys; half-timbering decoration between brickwork to enhance the design; carved stone entrances, thick wooden doors, wrought iron hardware; and tall, narrow windows or long rows of leaded and diamond paned casement windows.

English Cottages

Many of the same details, but on a much smaller scale, were used in the design of single family houses in the English Cottage style. Sharply pitched slate roofs, steep gables, large front chimneys, stone veneer finishes, and stucco and decorative half-timbering were used to emphasize the characteristics of English Cottage architecture. Sometimes even false thatched roofs were used to enhance the cottage look.

International Style – Moderne

Rather than the ornament of the English Tudor style, the modern home favored reinforced concrete and glass to emphasize formal composition and add decorative effect. American modern architecture merged with Europe's International Style to produce examples of Moderne dwellings that were simple with plain wall surfaces. Materials for these geometrically shaped buildings, often with Art Deco elements, included cinder blocks, poured concrete, stucco, steel framing, and glass blocks.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, lumber companies had been in the business of providing dimension lumber like two-by-fours, and other materials for home building – siding, shingles, doors, and windows with pre-framed sashes. Midwestern companies that had been selling and shipping boxcar trainloads of housing materials to local lumber yards, took on new names and marketing plans and became mail-order companies called Aladdin, Lewis Homes, Liberty Homes, and Gordon-Van Tine. They were quickly joined by mail-order giants Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Montgomery Ward who expanded their offerings by entering the mail-order housing business.

County residents could select total house packages with first-rate materials in the latest style choices to meet their space needs, budgets, and their specific tastes. Building parts arrived by railroad, precut and numbered. Sears also offered household furnishings to enhance the design, along with a mortgage plan to help owners acquire their new homes. It included a guarantee that promised satisfaction or Sears would pay all shipping costs and refund the purchase price.

Once the lot and foundation were ready, the homes were assembled by local builders or possibly even by the purchasers themselves. Shipping dates were staggered so that materials arrived by train as needed, with supplies coming not only from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but from midwest locations as well. In some cases, local contractors were engaged by Sears and construction was supervised by a company representative.

In styles offering variety and distinctiveness that ranged from Prairie Style Foursquares to small Bungalows, and from picturesque English Cottages to formally detailed Colonial Revivals, these individually selected, well-designed, and well-built twentieth century homes can be found throughout Centre County.

How can you tell if yours is a mail-order house? Matching styles to old catalogs or books about them is one way. Original bathroom and kitchen fixtures and hardware may have a company name printed on them, and numbers on joists or rafters used in construction offer other clues.

© Centre County Historical Society, 1999