House Styles

American Foursquare

• Built mainly between 1890 and 1930.
• The American Foursquare style houses were built in brick, stone, stucco, concrete block, and wood. They are generally two-and-a-half story, box shaped houses, with a four-room floor plan, low-hipped roofs, deep overhangs, large central dormers and a full front porch with 2-4 columns.
• Sometimes called "the Prairie Box", and considered a subtype of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Style because of their open interior spaces, horizontal lines, and emphasis on natural materials.
• A popular kit house design, the Sears, Gordon Van Tine, Aladdin, Lewis-Liberty, Harris Brothers, Sterling Homes and Bennett catalogs all offered a variety of foursquare plans and kits to choose from.
• The typical floor plan consisted of a reception hall, living room, dining room and kitchen on the first floor and three bedrooms and a bathroom on the second.
• The less common Workingman's Foursquare is a one-story featuring a tall basement. These were often found in company towns around the time of World War I.
• Their boxy shape made foursquares ideal for narrow city lots, and their simple features and lack of hallways made them economical to build, making the foursquare a dominant house style in the city.
• Foursquares often feature elements from other styles:
  • Craftsman-exposed roof rafters, beamed ceilings, built-in cabinets, natural woodwork
  • Queen Anne-bay windows, towers, and gingerbread trim