The Yule Blog

by Craig Claus

Shingle Style can describe a wide variety of informal homes that have a certain woodsy, vacationing, seaside or mountain cottage “feel”. Beyond the common shingle and stone clad exteriors, there are several architectural house types whose features can be found in the Shingle Style home. Historically, the style includes certain Queen Anne elements such as steep slope roofs, cross gables, turrets and wrapping porches. Other common Shingle Style elements are borrowed from Colonial Revival, using components of the style that includes gambrel roofs and palladian windows.

Some marks of the Style are the wrapped wood shingle exterior, asymmetrical floor plans, exteriors and roof lines, and a flavor of cottage airiness. The strong connection to the outdoors via wide covered porches - screened, 4-season, or open - and the informal living spaces, make Shingle Style homes a great match to lakefront vacation living. About.com contributer Jackie Craven identifies typical Shingle Style features as being irregular roof lines, cross gables, eaves on several levels, porches, and an asymmetrical floor plan. She also lists some additional features that a home may have: wavy wall surfaces, patterned shingles, squat half-towers, palladian windows, and rough-hewn stone on lower stories, around windows, or on porches.

My own implementation of the Shingle Style combines elements from the Arts and Crafts or Craftsman style, using a bungalow’s squat shed dormers and banks of square divided-light windows. Oversized tapered square columns and built-up corners or tapered round columns, full or half post on a stone base, are other unique features that I may include in designs. Roof and deck brackets as well as exposed rafter tails have also been adopted from the Craftsman home in some designs.

Adirondack furniture, decor, colors, and details have also influenced what lakeshore vacationers are looking for in a home designed for recreation and relaxation. Green and red trim, and richly stained or natural wood shingles topping natural gray stone veneers are used to lay a home softly into the landscape.

The modern incarnation may also include a large porch that is integral to the floorplan and extends the living space with eating and sitting areas around wood-burning fireplaces. Large central stone fireplaces with timber mantels are a common component, as are barn boards, exposed beams, open staircases, beadboard wainscoting and ceilings; and all types of light and dark finished woods - oak, hickory, maple, fir.

Transom windows atop mulled repeating tall windows open up the vertical and horizontal components of the view. Cottage style double hung windows on bays and dormers, and window seats create informal areas to recline, nap, and catch a water or woodland view. Wooden carriage house garage doors compliment the package of strong roof lines, multiple dormers, and layering of nesting, repeating, and scaled forms.

Themes of the New Shingle Style have emerged from my experience designing homes based on the lifestyles, values, budgets, and vision of the vacationing, retiring, and retreating clients that I have had the pleasure of working with.