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Queen Anne Style Guide

The Queen Anne style is characterized by asymmetrical facades, steeply pitched roofs, decorative elements like shingles and half-timbering, and porches with spindlework and gingerbread trim. Materials typically include frame construction with decorative woodwork and stone or brick foundations. Windows are often narrow with decorative stained or leaded glass. The style is highly detailed and asymmetrical to avoid large flat surfaces.

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Pedro Henrique Maranhão
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60 views

Queen Anne Style Guide

The Queen Anne style is characterized by asymmetrical facades, steeply pitched roofs, decorative elements like shingles and half-timbering, and porches with spindlework and gingerbread trim. Materials typically include frame construction with decorative woodwork and stone or brick foundations. Windows are often narrow with decorative stained or leaded glass. The style is highly detailed and asymmetrical to avoid large flat surfaces.

Uploaded by

Pedro Henrique Maranhão
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Queen Anne

Style Guide

Queen Anne (1880-1910)


As seen in Walnut Street, Wood Avenue, Cherry Street, Sannoner, and
Locust Street historic districts.
Summary of Characteristics

The term “Queen Anne style” is often used interchangeably with the term “Victorian,” however the latter refers to the time period
in which the Queen Anne style was popularized and widely constructed. The American Queen Anne movement was loosely based
on the English revival of the same name that looked to English styles of the late 17th and 18th centuries for inspiration.

The Queen Anne style is characterized by an asymmetrical façade, steeply pitched roof of irregular shape, textured shingles or
other decorative elements, such as false half-timbering, which are used to avoid a smooth-walled appearance. Partial or full width
porches with turned posts, spindle work, and gingerbread trim are common. Other decorative details that are typical of the Queen
Anne style include metal roof cresting, finials, patterned masonry, bay windows, towers, colored and leaded glass, and secondary
integral porches (often on the second-story). The Queen Anne style is highly detailed. Architectural historian Cyril Harris sums it up:
“It may safely be said that the Queen Anne style abhors any unadorned large flat surface.”
Asymmetrical facades
Except for some vernacular folk forms, asymmetry is a signature of the Queen Anne style. Gable placement, porches, dormers, as
well as door and window placements all contribute to the asymmetry typical of the style. Towers are also common on Queen Anne
houses and can be square, round, or polygonal, as pictured above.

Materials
Typically frame construction with decorative woodwork, sometimes cornice-
like brackets in the eaves. Foundations can be stone or brick, and roof materials
can be metal, wood shingles, or some other type of shingle. Decorative iron
work can be seen on roof crests. Porch posts are typically wood, except in some
subtypes that borrow from other early 20th century styles popular at the same
time. Wood shingles can be used, as pictured to the right, to avoid a smooth-
walled appearance and add texture to the surface. Stucco and half-timbering
can be used in the same way, as pictured in the front gable in the example
above.
Gingerbread trim and spindlework
Highly decorative woodwork, usually turned, such as spindlework, lace-like
spandrels, or flat jigsaw cut trim is present. Porch supports are commonly
either Queen Anne-like turned spindles or sometimes square posts with
chamfered (beveled) corners as seen in Italianate-style porches.

Windows, doors, and Eastlake details


Windows typically narrow 1/1 wood windows or sometimes 2/1, doors often
wood with large single light and decorative carvings, sometimes in an
Eastlake design (less an architectural style and more a style of
ornamentation that adorned furniture during this era), decorative wood
shingles are possible in the gables. Stained or leaded glass is commonly seen
in doors, windows, and transoms.
Porches
Porches on Queen Anne houses are often full width or even wrap around the façade onto one or both sides of the house, further
accentuating the asymmetry of the house. Second story porches are common, especially on high-style examples. Integrated
(recessed) porches can occur in gables or towers.

Note the many porches


on this example

Subtype: Free Classic


Some Queen Anne houses use
classical columns as porch
supports rather than delicate
turned spindles and gingerbread
trim. Called Free Classic, this
subtype may share elements more
commonly identified with the
Colonial Revival style, such as
Palladian windows and door
surrounds, cornice-line dentils,
decorative swags and garlands,
and quoins.

This Free Classic example uses Classical columns atop brick piers as well as heavy
cornice returns and a keystone centered above the windows in the dormer.
Subtype: Folk Victorian
A common subtype or vernacular
iteration of the Queen Anne, the term
“Folk Victorian” refers to houses built
during the Victorian era that are
fundamentally simple house forms with
applied Queen Anne details, most
commonly seen in the form of a porch
with decorative woodwork, and turned
spindles and to a lesser extent brackets
eaves, as seen in the example to the left.

A Note About Folk forms


Folk Victorian or a vernacular house with Queen Anne details includes houses in any folk house form, such as gable front, gable-
front-and-wing, side gabled (hall and parlor, I-house, and massed-plan), and pyramidal; all symmetrical except for gable-front-and-
wing examples. Can be one, one-and-a-half, or two stories high. All with applied decorative elements commonly seen in other
styles of the Victorian era. They differ from more high-style examples in that they typically have a symmetrical facade and a lack
the textured and varied wall surfaces characteristic of the Queen Anne style.

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