The buildings of Murray Hill Square have been inspired by many American esthetic movements. Here are a few of those inspirations.
American Gothic Revival
Also known as Carpenter Gothic
The influence of English romanticism and the mass production of elaborate wooden millwork after the Industrial Revolution fueled the construction of Gothic Revival homes in the mid-1800s. These picturesque structures are marked by "Gothic" windows with distinctive pointed arches; exposed framing timbers; and steep, vaulted roofs with cross-gables. Extravagant features may include towers and verandas. Ornate wooden detailing is generously applied as gable, window, and door trim.
American architects Alexander Jackson Davis and Andrew Jackson Downing championed Gothic in domestic buildings in the 1830s. Most Gothic Revival homes were constructed between 1840 and 1870 in the Northeast.
Georgian Colonial
Befitting a king--in fact, the style is named for four King Georges of England-Georgian homes are refined and symmetrical with paired chimneys and a decorative crown over the front door. Modeled after the more elaborate homes of England, the Georgian style dominated the British colonies in the 1700s. Most surviving Georgians sport side-gabled roofs, are two to three stories high, and are constructed in brick. Georgian homes almost always feature an orderly row of five windows across the second story. Modern-day builders often combine features of the refined Georgian style with decorative flourishes from the more formal Federal style.
Federal Style
Ubiquitous up and down the East Coast, Federal-style architecture dates from the late 1700s and coincided with a reawakening of interest in classical Greek and Roman culture. Builders began to add swags, garlands, elliptical windows, and other decorative details to rectangular Georgian houses. The style that emerged resembles Georgian, but is more delicate and more formal. Many Federal-style homes have an arched Palladian window on the second story above the front door. The front door usually has sidelights and a semicircular fanlight. Federal-style homes are often called "Adam" after the English brothers who popularized the style.
Stick House
A member of the Victorian family, the Stick house boasts a lot of detail. However, few Stick homes incorporate all the possible features. Typical characteristics include gabled, steeply pitched roofs with overhangs; wooden shingles covering the exterior walls and roof; horizontal, vertical, or diagonal boards--the "sticks" from which it takes its name--that decorate the cladding; and porches.
Octagon
There have been eight-sided buildings in many countries for thousands of years but the octagon house was the invention of an American, Orson Squire Fowler. He first published his octagon idea in his own A Home for All, or the Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building in 1849. He argued that eight walls enclosed more space than four walls inscribed within the same circumference; that octagons received more daylight, were easier to heat and cool (through a central cupola); that they saved steps and afforded better views.
Fowler also was among the first to incorporate into his houses hot and cold running water, filtered drinking water, dumbwaiters, speaking tubes, and indoor flush toilets. He built his own octagon house in Fishkill, New York, in 1850 with these modern conveniences.
A Home for All and other popular building manuals included instructions on how to construct octagons. Thousands were built throughout America, most of them around 1860, but the habit of living in a four-sided room was hard to break.
The outside of the octagon house could accommodate any style - Georgian, Gothic, Italian, French, and, in the case of Longwood (opposite page), built in Natchez, Mississippi, even Moorish. During the popularity of the octagon, several other geometric shapes were tried such as the circle and the hexagon, but they never gained acceptance.
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From American Shelter by Lester Walker
Cottage Style
Birth of the American Front Porch
The designs for cottages and farmhouses first portrayed by A. J. Downing in 1850 in The Architecture of Country Houses had a profound effect on the country. They were the beginning of a real vernacular domestic architecture that was to last a long time.
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Downing's houses were distinguished by steep roof slopes, balconies, porches, window gables, and deep shadows made by projecting roofs. He was after the ideal building - the house that suited the owner's needs and the land best. He saw the picturesque as a natural style that could provide "true, honest, and functional" architecture yet fit the landscape in a romantic way.
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The Cottage Style borrowed from the Early Gothic Style but also created new rules soon to be followed by American housebuilders. The house was to be irregular like the forms of nature. It was to be nestled into the landscape to appear picturesque when viewed from various sites and also afford attractive views from its windows and porches. It was to be built of natural materials or painted tan, gray, or green to harmonize with the earth and its plants. It was the opposite of the symmetrical, hard-edged, white Greek Revival Style house designed to stand out in the landscape.
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Many of the architects who contributed plans to Downing's books also produced pattern books of their own. They all emphasized the use of natural materials for building. The most significant of these was the utilization of board and batten siding for the exterior cladding of the house. This type of construction was welcomed by Downing as an honest and true replacement for painted flush board siding meant to simulate cut stone. Board and batten siding also created strong vertical shadow lines totally in keeping with the Gothic Style. New tools like the steam-powered scroll saw and the development of the balloon frame made wooden construction inevitable. It was an obvious choice because of an endless supply of lumber, which was much less expensive and easier to work with than stone.
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The Cottage Style is credited with giving birth to the American front porch. It provided a roof over the main entrance and a semiprivate place to sit and enjoy the outdoors while protected from the hot sun and inclement weather. It was usually covered with honeysuckle or some other flowering vine, which pleasantly scented warm summer evenings.
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From American Shelter by Lester Walker
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