The first prairie-style home was conceived by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. He believed that the Victorian homes that he saw throughout North America, from Los Angeles to real estate in East York had rooms that were too boxed-in and confining. His design, called "A Home in a Prairie Town," appeared in a 1901 edition of Ladies Home Journal and included more open interior spaces and low horizontal lines. He was inspired to create a design that would blend in with the flatness of prairie landscapes.
If you're looking for Arlington Texas homes for sale or properties in Ontario that were built in the early years of this home style than you will usually be looking at homes using plaster with wood trim or those with horizontal board siding and batten. Later designs moved to using concrete block instead. You will find a variety of choices when it comes to the houses shape, from L or T shapes to more conventional squares. But there are some things that are standard of most prairie-style properties.
You will generally find a low-pitched roof, a central chimney, overhanging eaves, clerestory windows. This latter feature is a line of narrow windows along a high wall. It is a great way of adding more natural life to one of the key rooms within the house. You might find these windows in the kitchen or main living space when looking at Ontario or London Ontario homes. You will also likely notice the open floor plan that first inspired the home style.
Prairie homes became popular quite quickly throughout America and you will find many of them designed by a variety of architects. There are also some newer styles that take their main features from this design. One of these is the American Foursquare, which is sometimes known as the Prairie Box. These homes are generally two and a half stories high, have a full-width porch, and are made of brick, stucco, stone, or concrete block. They commonly have a four-room plan on the main floor. This was a way to offer more usable living space in tiny city lots where that was at a premium. But you will also find this style in towns and smaller cities, like Rhinebeck homes for sale.
The heyday of this style of home was in the first twenty years of the 1900s. So, if you want an authentic prairie-style than you should remember that you will likely need to do some more maintenance than you would with more modern Ontario or Toronto beaches real estate. But there are many positive reasons why so many examples of this home still exist across the country.
|