Chesapeake Home

In this month’s Real Estates, we take a look at Federal style architecture, which is an adaptation of the Georgian style and became popular in the United States around 1780 until the 1830s. Like much of America’s architecture, the Federal (or Federalist) style was modeled after estates in the British Isles. The Adam brothers—two Scotsmen [...]

In this month’s Real Estates, we are profiling Prairie Box and American Foursquare architecture. The Prairie style came into existence around 1893 to 1920 and was popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright believed that the Victorian era homes were too confining and began to design houses with low horizontal lines and open interior spaces. These [...]

In this month’s Real Estates we are considering styles of architecture common to coastal climes. Among these styles the Cape Cod, the colonial, and contemporary variations are standards for waterfront properties around the Chesapeake Bay region. Each has very unique architectural features with qualities that are well suited for waterfront structures.
These three styles each originated [...]

Handmade Crafts Spark a Movement and an Architectural Style In this month’s Real Estates we look at the Craftsman—an architectural style heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement of the 1880s, when English designers John Ruskin, William Morris, and Philip Webb among others were celebrating handcrafts and the use of simple as well as natural forms. In 1902, brothers Charles and Henry Greene from Pasadena, California began to design houses that combined the Arts and Crafts ide

An Era that Influenced Architecture In this month’s Real Estates we look at Victorians–homes classified by an era and not an architectural style. The Victorian period spans from 1840 to 1900, and within that time, many styles and trends overlapped each other, causing this type of home to be very eclectic. Most experts give residential Victorian architecture the following names: Gothic Revival, Folk Victorian, Italianate, Second Empire, Renaissance Revival, Queen Anne, Stick Style, Ri

In this month’s Real Estates we look at Tudor Revivals–reinventions of the majestic homes built in the 1500s by the Tudor Dynasty in England. In the United States, Tudor or Medieval Revival homes were initially embraced by the wealthy for their country or suburban estates. By the early 20th century the style’s popularity filtered down [...]

In this month’s Real Estates we look at the Colonial–the single most popular architectural style in the United States. The name of the style reflects the late 19th-century fascination with homes built by the early English and Dutch settlers, a trend that intensified through the World War I and II era before peaking in the [...]

In this month’s look at Real Estates we profile the Ranch–a style pioneered by Frank Lloyd Wright and the informal bungalows of the early 20th century. Though homes in what has come to be known as a “Ranch” style have existed since sod was first cut and stacked to build walls, it is widely accepted [...]