By James C. Massey and Shirley Maxwell

	A design worthy of an 18th-century English country house, the mansion built for photography magnate George Eastman in Rochester, New York, features a carefully detailed pedimented portico, but its early Colonial Revival date of 1902-1905 is suggested by an oversized roof. It was designed by J. Foster Warner and McKim, Mead & White. Photo Courtesy of Andy Olenick

Was it a lingering note from the Victorian era or a prelude to modern building design? Any way you look at it, the American Colonial Revival style was a remarkable and lengthy architectural venture into nostalgia.

Based on Georgian and Federal (Adamesque) buildings constructed during the 18th century in England's North American colonies, the Colonial Revival was immensely popular from the late 19th century well into the middle of the 20th. The style's initial phase lasted from about 1890 through about 1910, and its roots go back even further.

As the United States began to put the bitterness of the Civil War behind it, the Colonial Revival movement provided a comforting backward look at the nation's founding and its successful struggle for independence. It was a reminder that Americans had a history to be proud of as well as a future worth pursuing.

The postwar decades bustled with big, patriotic exhibitions or "fairs"—national, international, and local-each designed to boost American business and bolster a sense of national unity. The most influential of these early fairs was Philadelphia's 1876 International Exhibition celebrating 100 years of American independence.

The centennial exhibition, as it is usually called, is often viewed as the kickoff event of the Colonial Revival movement. Visitors toured several buildings constructed in what was perceived to be "colonial" style. Erected solely for the purpose of the exhibition, the buildings were scattered about the exhibition grounds and housed exhibits of antique objects, tools, and furnishings, as well as displays of modern equipment and processes. The hugely popular "New England Farmer's Home and Modern Kitchen" exhibit, for example, contrasted a re-created "olde-tyme" (circa 1776) open-hearth kitchen to a vastly improved 1876 version equipped with running water, a cast-iron cookstove, and a copper hot-water boiler. An admiring public left the Philadelphia exhibition enamored with rosy scenes of a colonial era that was greatly enhanced by the distance of 100 years.



In fact, for a nation awash in technological advances and industrial growth and alarmed by the flood of Eastern European workers needed to man its new factories, the centennial seemed an opportunity to set aside the "recent unpleasantness" of the war and to celebrate present achievements while affirming (some would say creating) an idealized past—a past that was unified, mostly English, and decidedly unthreatening.

Rediscovering a Revolutionary Era
The homes of America's founders presented concrete symbols of a perfect past, and the centennial spurred an upsurge of interest in restoring old buildings. It was only a short step from there to building new ones that looked (sort of) like old ones, only larger, grander, and more comfortable. In places like Boston, New York, and Providence, wealthy patrons of architecture erected large Colonial Revival houses with super-sized Georgian and Federal features married to Queen Anne features, and with up-to-the-minute floorplans and conveniences.

At the beginning of the Colonial Revival period, the approach to both buildings and objects was often an enthusiastic antiquarianism that fell well short of archeological truth. At first, colonial features cropped up more or less randomly on Queen Anne-style Victorian houses. Georgian or Federal cornices with dentils and modillions, swan's-neck pediments, Palladian windows, and exaggerated dormers on multi-gabled roofs, towers, and porches.

Soon, however, the irregular shapes of the Queen Anne style gave way to square or rectangular forms that were closer to historical models. Symmetrical arrangements of windows, doors, dormers, and columns replaced the picturesque irregularity of the Queen Anne, bringing a semblance of 18th-century order to the fa­ades. The buildings as a rule were still larger and taller than 18th-century houses, however, and the decorative features were bolder.

Over time, though, the details were more carefully researched and selected. Well-trained architects produced designs that were near-replicas of specific early buildings (or of conjectural "ideal" ones). Many made a point of incorporating accurate regional features into their new "colonial" buildings.

As it happened, the beginning years of the Colonial Revival movement coincided with the development of architecture as a profession in this country. During the post-Civil War decades, a growing number of American architects spent months or years studying in the architectural ateliers of Europe, particularly in those of France's Ecole des Beaux Arts. They came back to America as expert draftsmen who were also thoroughly grounded in the principles of classical architecture. And they couldn't wait to apply their training on home ground.

Serendipitously, this increase in classically trained architects met up with another great exhibition extolling America's colonial past. The World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893 (a belated celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus's discovery voyage), nudged the Colonial Revival even further upward in popularity. The Columbian Exposition reached a much larger and more varied audience than the centennial had. The 20 million visitors who flocked to the Columbian Exposition must have included many first-generation Americans or recent immigrants, who found there a blueprint for Americanization. The exposition, billed as the "White City," was stage-managed by Daniel Burnham, a leader of the City Beautiful movement and its layout was dazzling and persuasive.

Thirty-nine temporary "state" buildings were erected to house displays of each state's products and modern machines, as well as exhibits relating to the state's history. Of those 39 structures, 21 were based (with widely varying degrees of accuracy) on actual historic buildings that had been erected during its state's colonial era. Since the buildings were meant to be temporary, they were flimsily constructed and perished in a fire not long after the exposition ended. Nonetheless, the public was impressed, and a generation of architects found an exciting direction for their talents. Using skills honed in Paris, they would design colonial buildings for America.

Colonial Models and Masters
To learn the ways of 18th-century construction, young Beaux-Arts-trained architects, such as William Follen McKim and Stanford White, toured the Northeast in the 1890s, scouting out early buildings and documenting them with detailed sketches and measured drawings. Later, they put their field notes to good use, drawing on first-hand knowledge of Georgian and Federal architectural details and forms to produce buildings which, while totally original, rang true to an earlier design spirit. Even more importantly, they published books of their drawings, spreading the Colonial Revival message across the nation.

Aided by governments, historical associations, and wealthy patrons, the restoration of old buildings played an important part in the Colonial Revival movement. The restoration of Independence Hall in 1898 was among the most important of these efforts, but there were many other smaller ones. In Washington, D.C., for example, the American Institute of Architects rescued a distinguished Federal-period mansion, the Octagon, and, under the leadership of architect Glenn Brown, restored it as its headquarters.

As the Colonial Revival evolved, it moved closer to its 18th-century roots. Because of the precision of scale and the careful attention to accurate decorative elements and massing, many buildings constructed in the second and third decade of the 20th century looked as if they could have been built a hundred or more years earlier. In and around Philadelphia, for instance, Wilson Eyre built a solid reputation as a Colonial Revival architect. Eyre's Pennsylvania farmhouses and city dwellings managed to capture the essence of 18th-century design without being mere imitations of their inspiration buildings. Other noted Colonial Revivalists in Philadelphia included Fiske Kimball and Cope and Stewardson.

Not surprisingly, New England was also a hotbed of Colonial Revival building, led by architects such as Norman Isham of Providence, Rhode Island. Frank Chouteau Brown and Joseph Everett Chandler were noted restorationists in Boston. With the Pendleton House in Providence, Rhode Island, constructed in 1904, the architectural firm of Stone, Carpenter and Willson offered their own, never-before-seen version of a perfectly designed Federal-style house to shelter an important collection of American antiques. In 1896, John P. Benson designed Wheatland, a Federal-style house in Salem, Massachusetts, that was indistinguishable from the century-old mansions on the city's famed Chestnut Street.

The South also furnished fertile grounds for Colonial Revival activity. Among the Colonial Revival architects practicing before 1910 were Waddy B. Wood and Leon Dessez of Washington, D.C., and Virginia; William Noland and Carneal & Johnston of Richmond, Virginia; and Neel Reid of Atlanta. And, of course, there were the architectural giants who arrived on the scene in its earliest days, McKim, Mead & White, whose Colonial Revival and Neoclassical buildings are scattered about the Northeast.

There were also many "colonializations" of older houses around the country. Inverness, a simple Virginia farmhouse in Nottaway County, originally built around 1800 and enlarged twice in the 19th century, was further enriched in 1907 when an unknown architect added an imposing two-storey Neoclassical portico.

The Colonial Revival spirit was everywhere in that enthusiastic era. Besides the great exhibitions, other influences swelling the Colonial Revival tide included the many magazines, planbooks, and ready-built house catalogs that circulated throughout the period. Every month, for instance, Edward Bok's Ladies' Home Journal reminded a vast and eager readership of the charms of colonial-era architecture and furnishings.

The early Colonial Revival was the first of America's many rear-view glances toward a past that seemed, despite its hardships, simpler and better than the present. No doubt we'll keep looking—but it probably will never get any better.