Italianate

The Italianate Style emerged out of the popular Greek Revival and Gothic Revival styles in the United States to become one of the most-popular architectural designs in the last half of the 19th Century. It came as an artistic response to decades of homes and buildings done in classical Greek styles with their relatively plain, bold, straight lines and columns. Italianate, in response, echoed the Victorian principles of height accented with a flat roof with overhanging eaves. Homes could be as tall as three stories and were built with heavy doors, ornate arches over bay windows or taller, double-paned windows. Balconies with balustrades and a roof-top cupola were common to the Italianate Style.

Known for cast-iron decorative touches, Italianate homes remained in vogue through the late 1870s. The style was employed on homes, civic buildings and barns, except in the South, where poorer residents could not afford to have an Italianate home built during The Reconstruction.