The original American summer house Welcome back to Period Dramas, a weekly column that alternates between rounding up historic homes on the market and answering questions we?ve always had about older structures.
Not every grand house in the 19th century was built with the showstopping finishes of a Newport, Rhode Island, mansion.
In fact, the latter half of the 19th century saw a type of structure that?while informed by fashionable European architecture?was purposefully informal: the Shingle style home.
First coming about in the 1870s, the Shingle style married the Colonial American house?which gained new attention after the Civil War?with architectural styles that originated in Normandy, a location fancied by architects and American elites alike. Shingle style houses typically sported open floorplans centered on central halls. They were rambling, asymmetric structures that lacked much ornamentation on their exteriors, save for their characteristic wood-shingle cladding.

Courtesy of Creative Commons.
McKim, Mead, & White?s Low House in Bristol, Rhode Island. The house has sadly been demolished.

Inside, intricate wood paneling decorated public rooms of the most impressive homes, although beadboard and other more simplistic finishes were also common. These houses, with their quirky rooflines and oddly shaped rooms, tended have a more informal personality, and became the architectural style of choice for summer houses of the Northeaste...