Coldwell Banker is proud to have a powerhouse network of agents and teams whose dedication to guiding consumers home is unparalleled! Cheers to all who have been recognized in the RealTrends “America’s Best Real Estate Professionals” rankings. Now in its 11th year, the RealTrends America’s Best rankings honor the top real estate agents and teams across the United States.
Your outstanding achievements are a true testament to your dedication and commitment to the real estate industry. We look forward to your continued success and seeing you serve as a shining light to those in your community.
Linked below are the agents and teams recognized in the “America’s Best” rankings by category.
Billy Joel has long been known as Long Island’s golden boy, but the musician is saying buh-bye to his home base out east.
The Piano Man has listed his Oyster Bay mansion for a cool $49 million, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The 26-acre property, known as Middlesea, sits along the North Shore waterfront and includes a 20,000-square-foot main house, along with a beach house, a guest apartment, a gate house, and more.
Tyler Sands One of the bedrooms
Currently, the central home is undergoing renovations, but it includes five bedrooms and eight bathrooms, along with covered porches, brick columns and archways, and a two-story foyer with black-and-white marble floors. Plus, the home comes with a suite of amenities suited to a rock star: There’s a spa and hair salon, a bowling alley, and a wine cellar. At one point, the home sported an indoor pool—along with the two outdoors—but Joel had it covered up to make a music room, the listing agent Bonnie Williamson with Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty told the WSJ.
Joel decided to list the house while renovations were still occurring because “whoever buys will want to do their own selections of how to paint and decorate and perhaps style the kitchen,” Williamson said. It should be completed by the late summer or early fall.
Tyler Sands A living area
Over the years, Joel acquired bits of property to amass his enormous estate: He paid $22.5 million for the first 14 acres in 2002, then snapped up the surrounding land. He’s decided to give it all up now because he and his wife spend most of their time in Florida, where he bought a $22 million home in 2015.
The Grammy winner’s decision to forgo his Long Island abode will be another family’s gain, however. Along with all of the various indoor spaces, the property features a floating dock, boat ramp, and helipad, allowing you to skip the New York City traffic and arrive in style. And the various other homes on the acreage give you at least another 10 bedrooms for guests to enjoy.
So although Joel may no longer be living in a New York state of mind, you sure can be.
WESTFIELD, N.J. (April 19, 2023) – Coldwell Banker Realty is pleased to announce the formation of its new Westfield office, located at 209 Central Ave. in Westfield. Led by Branch Vice Presidents John Bradley and George Kraus, Coldwell Banker Realty in Westfield is the new home base for approximately 300 affiliated real estate agents serving home buyers and sellers throughout the Union County area.
As part of Coldwell Banker Realty’s reorganization of its regional footprint, agents from the company’s former Westfield East and Westfield West offices have merged at the former’s existing downtown location. The restructured office will be called Coldwell Banker Realty in Westfield. The Westfield East and Westfield West offices had a long history of ranking among the top Coldwell Banker offices in New Jersey and nationwide.
“We no longer define our success by the number of offices we operate, but rather by the number of markets we dominate,” said Tracy Devine, regional vice president of Coldwell Banker Realty in New Jersey and Rockland County, N.Y. and Greater Philadelphia. “This merger blends two powerhouse offices that are among the most successful Coldwell Banker Realty offices in New Jersey and the entire country. John Bradley and George Kraus are phenomenal managers leading the premier collective of agents serving Westfield and surrounding areas.”
Devine added, “The new Coldwell Banker Realty Westfield office reflects the modern workspace. It is an updated, 8,800 square-foot facility, providing agents and clients with a centralized meeting place, administrative support and white-glove service. At this prime location, agents can build their professional network while serving a broader area.”
Coldwell Banker Realty was the No. 1 real estate brokerage in New Jersey for 2022, based on closed sales volume and total number of units closed, per MLS data.
About Coldwell Banker Realty in New Jersey and Rockland County, N.Y. and Greater Philadelphia
Coldwell Banker Realty in New Jersey and Rockland County, N.Y. and Greater Philadelphia is a leading residential real estate brokerage company with approximately 5,600 affiliated sales associates. Coldwell Banker Realty is owned by a subsidiary of Anywhere Real Estate Inc. (NYSE:HOUS), the largest full-service residential real estate services company in the United States. Visit ColdwellBankerHomes.com.
More than 1,300 apartments will fill an empty office building in Lower Manhattan, making it the biggest residential conversion project in the country, its owners say.
The building at 25 Water St. was once home to the Daily News and JPMorgan Chase, which cleared out earlier in the pandemic. New owners are using decades-old rules that ease residential conversions in the Financial District to gut the offices, carve out courtyards and add 10 floors to the 22-story structure.
The owners have not submitted the residential plan for final approval from the city’s Department of Buildings, but city signoff is a formality in Lower Manhattan office conversions as long as the new design meets zoning and construction rules. Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul both say these types of conversions can help supercharge housing supply in places like Midtown and Flushing, Queens but first need the state to tweak zoning rules. State lawmakers are considering those changes, along with a new office conversion tax break, in the state budget currently being negotiated.
Repurposing an office building is usually quicker than erecting a new structure from the ground up, said architect Eugene Flotteron, whose company CetraRuddy is designing the 25 Water St. floor plans. The developers say the apartments should open in about two years.
But changing cubicles and water coolers into bedrooms and kitchens isn’t as simple. Nor is it cheap.
Owners GFP Real Estate and Metro Loft plan to scoop out two courtyards from the center of the building and wrap apartments around them, said GFP head Brian Steinwurtzel. That’ll allow the building to meet light and air requirements. The owners also plan to raise the height to 32 stories while still complying with density restrictions, Steinwurtzel said.
“I think this one is more complex than other ones that have been done,” Steinwurtzel said. “There’s significant structural work that needs to be done and that is very expensive.”
The two firms bought the building, until recently known as 4 New York Plaza, in December for about $250 million and will spend hundreds of millions more on the conversion. Steinwurtzel declined to give a total cost estimate, but cited a $400 to $500-per-square-foot rate for most conversions. The building at 25 Water Street is more than 1.1 million square feet.
Steinwurtzel said the new building will attract a range of tenants motivated by a massive planned gym, ground-floor shops and two swimming pools.
“The expectation is that there certainly will be younger single folks who are just sort of starting out in New York, up to families with children that will be looking for these larger units,” Steinwurtzel said. “It’ll help to continue the transition of the financial district into a 24/7 mixed-use neighborhood.”
They plan to squeeze more than 50 market-rate and luxury apartments ranging from studios to four bedrooms onto each of the existing floors, fitting them together like Tetris pieces, according to initial blueprints. The owners and architects allowed Gothamist to view the floor plans but refused to release them for publication. The layout shows the complicated process of carving up commercial spaces set far from windows and turning them into places where people actually live.
Most of the apartments will have “home offices” that can double as bedrooms, but not all of those will have windows — a controversial arrangement backed by Adams. Other rooms described as offices will face the adjacent Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park, but the windows still won’t comply with current bedroom rules because they don’t face a street or courtyard.
“Anyone who rents it will have no idea they’re not in a pretty awesome bedroom with the windows,” Flotteron said.
For now, the imposing facade and narrow window slits give off prison vibes, but the building actually won an architectural award when it first opened in the 1960s. It was designed to look like a punch card and housed telecommunications offices and equipment.
One of the challenges in repurposing the building is ensuring that its windows comply with city rules.
David Brand/Gothamist
The developers plan to expand the windows, tear down the brown brick facade and turn it gray, renderings show
On Tuesday morning, construction workers walked through the dust-filled lobby and loading bay, where asbestos removal notices hung from the walls and jagged scraps of metal stuck out of dumpsters. They were clearing out the offices in the floors above to make way for a complicated transformation project.
Flotteron said they will turn the loading docks and existing curb cuts into a parking garage and entryway,
“The great thing for us about conversions … is they really are treasure chests that you need to get into and explore and find all this great stuff that you can reuse,” Flotteron said.
Despite a deep affordable housing shortage taking the heaviest toll on the poorest New Yorkers, the project will not have any apartments with rents capped for low-income renters. That’s typical of office conversions in the Financial District, where there are no affordability requirements.
That makes it more profitable for building owners to take on expensive conversions. But it’s also fueling skepticism and opposition from affordable housing activists and local lawmakers contemplating new conversion rules for Midtown, Flushing and the Bronx’s Hub.
Members of the City Council grilled Adams administration officials on affordability requirements during a recent Council hearing on his office conversion plans, which would allow owners to turn offices into apartments in buildings constructed before 1991.
“We especially need to build affordable housing with convenient access to well-paying jobs, high-quality schools and other services,” said Land Use Committee Chair Rafael Salamanca at the hearing. “Manhattan neighborhoods should be accessible to more than just the wealthiest.”
But Steinwurtzel, the 25 Water St. developer, said state and city lawmakers will have to pay up if they actually want to turn office shells into homes.
“The politicians, if they want to create housing in New York City out of these buildings, they will need to provide significant incentives,” Steinwurtzel said. “And if they want to provide affordable housing, those incentives would have to be even higher.”
Many homeowners have turned their attention to enhancing their outdoor space since the pandemic began—and that may pay off at resale, according to a new survey from the National Association of REALTORS® and the National Association of Landscape Professionals. Ninety-two percent of REALTORS® say they recommend that sellers improve their curb appeal prior to listing, finds the 2023 Remodeling Impact Report: Outdoor Features. REALTORS® most often recommend general landscaping maintenance, standard lawn care service and tree trimming.
“It’s no surprise that nearly all REALTORS® and most homeowners place a high value on the curb appeal of a well-maintained yard,” says NALP CEO Britt Wood. “Healthy outdoor living and green spaces help the environment, increase home values, make communities more desirable and improve people’s mental and physical health.”
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way Americans use their homes for daily living, relaxation and entertainment, adds Jessica Lautz, NAR’s deputy chief economist and vice president of research. “Homeowners have embraced their outdoor spaces, transforming them into oases with pools, patios, plants and greenery,” Lautz says. “These outdoor features … can also attract buyers if the owner wants to sell.”
Prioritizing Outdoor Projects for Resale
Most homeowners indicate a desire for an in-ground pool or an outdoor fire feature, but the ROI on these items may not be as high as simple lawn care and landscape maintenance, the report finds. The survey defines “standard lawn care service” as six seasonal applications of fertilizer and/or weed control on a 5,000-square-foot lawn and “landscape maintenance” as mulch application, regular lawn mowing, pruning shrubs and planting about 60 perennials or annuals.
The features that make homeowners happiest, however, aren’t necessarily the ones that earn the most at resale. The least expensive projects, such as standard lawn care service, have the highest cost recovery but one of the lowest “joy” rankings from homeowners, according to the survey. Instead, the report found that the following outdoor projects received the highest satisfaction marks among homeowners:
In-ground pool
Landscape lighting
New patio
New wood deck
Fire feature
On the other hand, the items that ranked the lowest on homeowners’ “joy” scale were:
Outdoor kitchen
Tree care
Standard lawn care service
Installing a yard irrigation system
The majority of landscape professionals surveyed say the size and scope of outdoor home improvement projects have increased since the pandemic began. REALTORS® surveyed say the landscape projects they’ve seen most often since the pandemic began are the addition of an in-ground pool, landscape maintenance and a new patio.
This is a byline post from Liz Gehringer, President and CEO, Anywhere Franchise Brands, Acting President, Coldwell Banker Affiliate Business, COO, Coldwell Banker Real Estate
Housing inequalities, a growing wealth gap in the United States and a lack of resources among disenfranchised communities are major restrictions preventing an increase in Black homeownership. To ensure that people of color have equal access to homeownership, the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) is prioritizing several initiatives including shrinking racial inequalities and financial hurdles.
As we enter National Fair Housing Month, I had an opportunity to connect with four leaders who are working tirelessly to create equal paths to homeownership for all. Lydia Pope, president of NAREB, is kicking off this series by sharing the initiatives the organization is investing in to address fair housing.
Gehringer: What is the current state of fair housing?
Pope: While we’ve made great strides in creating equal opportunities to homeownership, there remains a lot of room for growth. Marginalized communities continue to face racial inequalities and lack access to the same resources that their white counterparts are afforded in the search of their dream home. NAREB is hoping to bring awareness to these issues to help tackle them and guide people through them.
Gehringer: To what extent have Black Americans been impacted by housing and wealth inequalities?
Pope: Homeownership for the Black community has declined nearly 20% since 2008. Despite the enactment of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which was designed to offer legal protections from housing discrimination, the homeownership gap continues to expand further disenfranchising the most marginalized. In 1960, 38% of Black Americans owned homes while White homeownership was at 65%, a 27-point gap. Forward to 2021 and the United States has experienced the largest homeownership spread since 1890 with 44.6% of Black Americans owning a home and 74.2% for Whites, a 29.6-point gap.
Gehringer: Are there any dynamics and obstacles impacting Black homeownership?
Pope: It is evident that blatant, race-related barriers are hindering the expansion of Black wealth in America. The average white family possesses eight times the wealth of a Black family of similar stature. The median net worth for Black households is $24,000 compared to $188,000 for White families. The cycle can only be broken by improving the major driver of Black wealth – intergenerational homeownership that yields prosperity and family economic security.
America’s public and private sectors claim to be committing to a more equitable society, one with opportunities for wealth and success regardless of race or ethnicity. But to make racial equity a reality, government, corporate and civic leaders must address the wealth and home ownership gaps that diminish the aspirations, hopes, and dreams of Black families and individuals.
For many Black families, one of the biggest hurdles is saving money for the down payment on a house. Their income level may qualify them for a mortgage, but they struggle to come up with the upfront costs. In passing H.R. 5376, the original Build Back Better Act, the House included a $10 billion down payment grant program for first-time, first-generation homebuyers. Options currently exist for down payment assistance, but most come with onerous conditions such as adding a second mortgage or stricter wage and credit score requirements making it harder to qualify for a mortgage. As the Senate pares down H.R. 5376 to attract support needed for passage in reconciliation, it’s critical that the down payment provisions remain in the bill.
Gehringer: How has fair housing progressed over the past few years?
Pope: The Economic Policy Institute has reported that African Americans have made significant advances in educational achievement, health, wealth, and wages since the fair housing act was passed.
President Joe Biden has issued a directive specifically calling on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to undo historic patterns of segregation and other types of discrimination in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing. Recently, this department made available over $19.4 million in American Rescue Plan funding to agencies working to address the unequal impact the COVID pandemic has had on communities of color, low-income communities and other vulnerable populations. This funding provides resources and support to victims of housing discrimination and is being used to conduct housing education and outreach activities, as well as address fair housing inquiries, complaints and investigations.
HUD has also endorsed the use of Special Purpose Credit Programs to help address inequities in barriers to credit and homeownership. The Special Purpose Credit Program is a tool that allows banks to meet the specific needs of these historically disadvantaged groups. HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge has asked government agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Reserve, Federal Housing Finance Agency and National Credit Union Association to expand homeownership opportunities for those who have been and continue to be systemically excluded from the housing and credit markets.
Gehringer: How is NAREB tackling fair housing issues in 2023?
Pope: To address racial inequalities and financial hurdles faced by Black Americans, NAREB is prioritizing the elimination of loan-level price adjusters and penalty fees for borrowers to access down payment assistance. The organization is also working to expand down payment assistance, especially for first time homebuyers, and is leveraging special purpose credit programs. Lastly, NAREB strives to end discriminatory and abusive appraisal practices and ultimately, aiming to fix the broken and out-of-date finance system in the housing industry.
Making a Difference
I am honored to champion and uplift the voices of the industry’s biggest trailblazers in housing equality. Throughout the month of April Coldwell Banker will be hosting a full series right here on the Blue Matter blog, sharing how Coldwell Banker-affiliated leaders are working to reduce housing inequities and ways you can serve the mission.
The demise of three banks last week has been sending shockwaves through an already fragile economy. Could it have an impact on real estate, too?
“The Silicon Valley Bank failure, along with a few other banks, means that the Federal Reserve cannot be so aggressive in raising its short-term interest rates,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the National Association of REALTORS®. “Therefore, mortgage rates will decline.”
Mortgage rates had been steadily rising in recent weeks, with the 30-year fixed-rate loan averaging 6.73% last week, according to Freddie Mac. The Fed has been making a series of aggressive rate increases, which may indirectly influence mortgage rates, over the last few months. Home buyers have been up against affordability woes, as mortgage rates are nearly double what they were just a year ago.
But as of Monday, mortgage rates had fallen about 50 basis points lower than last week. Yun says that when there is a panic in the financial market, investors often shift money toward safer assets, which tends to be U.S. Treasury notes and bonds. Mortgage rates lately have tended to follow the movement of Treasury yields, which are falling.
“So, a panic in a sense leads to an automatic stimulus to the economy from lower interest rates,” Yun says in public comments on LinkedIn. “The housing sector nearly always responds to falling mortgage rates, especially when there are job additions to the economy.” And if rates do head lower, more home buyers undoubtedly would still enter the housing market in response, he adds.
Bank Failures Spark Panic
Last Friday, the shutdown of Silicon Valley Bank became the second largest bank failure in U.S. history and the largest since the 2008 financial crisis. The bank was known as a large supporter of tech startups. About 15% of the loans in Silicon Valley Bank’s portfolio were residential and commercial mortgages, The Real Deal reported. Signature Bank and Silvergate Capital, both big lenders in the cryptocurrency space, also shuttered their doors.
To help avoid mass panic, the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Treasury Department created an emergency program to backstop all deposits using the Fed’s emergency lending authority. That granted depositors full access to their funds as of Monday, and the agencies vowed to make all depositors whole. Usually, banks only insure up to $250,000 per account ownership category through the FDIC, an agency that was created in 1933 after thousands of bank failures. In this case, the federal government’s move to backstop uninsured money has been viewed as an unusual step.
President Joe Biden has been offering assurance to Americans that banks are safe. He vowed on Monday to “strengthen oversight and regulations of larger banks so that we are not in this position again.”
Meanwhile, the bank failures may be a sign of trouble ahead for the tech industry. “Some businesses reliant on funding from Silicon Valley Bank [and others] may lack capital to continue its business or have to cut back,” Yun says. There could be some job losses ahead as a result, especially among some California tech companies, he adds. Local housing markets may be hampered by those job losses. But “broadly across the country,” Yun says, “more home buyers will enter the market [because of] lower mortgage rates.”
The majority of homeowners say they would like to lighten up their home’s exterior with a neutral color palette, according to a new survey of more than 1,400 respondents conducted by The Harris Poll and commissioned by Alside, an exterior building product firm. The top five most popular siding colors for 2023, as identified by survey respondents, are:
Off-white/cream
White
Light gray
Light brown
Medium blue
“It’s interesting to compare the national survey data to what we’re seeing in the market,” says Chase Creighton, business director of vinyl & composite cladding for homebuilding firm Associated Materials. “The farmhouse trend is driving more of the preference of homeowners choosing white and light colors. It’s possible, too, that cost may be a driver. As building material prices have risen, consumers may have gravitated toward lower cost options and away from premium colors.”
In fact, Alside, in its review of its company’s sales data, found that demand for white siding paint has more than doubled since 2018. View some of the leading siding colors below.
Every house has a unique architectural style, and sometimes it has two or more. Renovations and new, eclectic mixes make fitting a home into one specific category daunting or even impossible. Thankfully, there’s no need to memorize complicated architectural terminology. REALTOR® Magazine has compiled a guide to common residential architectural styles. Read about the details that give a home character, history, and romance.
The 1925 Paris Exhibition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs launched the Art Deco style, which echoed the Machine Age with geometric decorative elements and a vertically oriented design. This distinctly urban style was never widely used in residential buildings; it was more widespread in public and commercial buildings of the period.
Towers and other projections above the roofline enhance the vertical emphasis of this style, which was popularized by Hollywood movies of the 1930s. Flat roofs, metal window casements, and smooth stucco walls with rectangular cut-outs mark the exteriors of Art Deco homes. Facades are typically flush with zigzags and other stylized floral, geometric, and “sunrise” motifs. By 1940 the Art Deco style had evolved into “Art Moderne,” which features curved corners, rectangular glass-block windows, and a boat-like appearance. Popularized in the United States by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, the style enjoyed a revival in the 1980s.
These narrow, rectangular one and one-half story houses originated in California during the 1880s as a reaction to the elaborate decoration of Victorian homes. The style then moved eastward to the Midwest in the early 20th century, where it remained popular until the Great Depression. Bungalows have low-pitched gabled or hipped roofs and small covered porches at the entry. The style became so popular that you could order a bungalow kit from Sears and Roebuck catalog. The name “bungalow” had its origins in India, where it indicated a small, thatched home.
Some of the first houses built in the United States were Cape Cods. The original colonial Cape Cod homes were shingle-sided, one-story cottages with no dormers. During the mid-20th century, the small, uncomplicated Cape Cod shape became popular in suburban developments. A 20th-century Cape Cod is square or rectangular with one or one-and-a-half stories and steeply pitched, gabled roofs. It may have dormers and shutters. The siding is usually clapboard or brick.
America’s colonial period encompassed a number of housing types and styles. For more information about Colonial styles, see Cape Cod, Saltbox, Georgian, and Dutch Colonial. However, when we speak of the Colonial style, we often are referring to a rectangular, symmetrical home with bedrooms on the second floor. The double-hung windows usually have many small, equally sized square panes.
During the late 1800s and throughout the 20th century, builders borrowed Colonial ideas to create refined Colonial Revival homes with elegant central hallways and elaborate cornices. Unlike the original Colonials, Colonial Revival homes are often sided in white clapboard and trimmed with black or green shutters.
You know them by their odd-sized and often tall windows, their lack of ornamentation, and their unusual mixtures of wall materials—stone, brick, and wood, for instance. Architects designed Contemporary-style homes (in the Modern family) between 1950 and 1970, and created two versions: the flat-roof and gabled types. The latter is often characterized by exposed beams. Both breeds tend to be one-story tall and were designed to incorporate the surrounding landscape into their overall look.
Popularized at the turn of the 20th century by architect and furniture designer Gustav Stickley in his magazine, The Craftsman, the Craftsman-style bungalow reflected, said Stickley, “a house reduced to it’s simplest form… its low, broad proportions and absolute lack of ornamentation gives it a character so natural and unaffected that it seems to… blend with any landscape.”
The style, which was also widely billed as the “California bungalow” by architects such as Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene, featured overhanging eaves, a low-slung gabled roof, and wide front porches framed by pedestal-like tapered columns. Material often included stone, rough-hewn wood, and stucco. Many homes have wide front porches across part of the front, supported by columns.
The Creole Cottage, which is mostly found in the South, originated in New Orleans in the 1700s. The homes are distinguished by a front wall that recedes to form a first-story porch and second-story balcony that stretch across the entire front of the structure. Full-length windows open into the balconies, and lacy ironwork characteristically runs across the second-story level. These two- and three-story homes are symmetrical in design with front entrances placed at the center.
“Creole French,” a variation of the basic Creole design, came into vogue in southern states in the 1940s and 1950s.
This American style originated in homes built by German, or “Deutsch” settlers in Pennsylvania as early as the 1600s. A hallmark of the style is a broad gambrel roof with flaring eaves that extend over the porches, creating a barn-like effect. Early homes were a single room, and additions were added to each end, creating a distinctive linear floor plan. End walls are generally of stone, and the chimney is usually located on one or both ends. Double-hung sash windows with outward swinging wood casements, dormers with shed-like overhangs, and a central Dutch double doorway are also common. The double door, which is divided horizontally, was once used to keep livestock out of the home while allowing light and air to filter through the open top. The style enjoyed a revival during the first three decades of the 20th century as the country looked back with nostalgia to its colonial past.
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.
Balance and symmetry are the ruling characteristics of this formal style. Homes are often brick with detailing in copper or slate. Windows and chimneys are symmetrical and perfectly balanced, at least in original versions of the style. Defining features include a steep, high, hip roof; balcony and porch balustrades; rectangle doors set in arched openings; and double French windows with shutters. Second-story windows usually have a curved head that breaks through the cornice.
The design had its origins in the style of rural manor homes, or chateaus, built by the French nobles during the reign of Louis XIV in the mid-1600s. The French Provincial design was a popular Revival style in the 1920s and again in the 1960s.
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.
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.
This style is predominantly found in the Midwest, South, New England, and Midatlantic regions, though you may spot subtypes in parts of California. Its popularity in the 1800s stemmed from archeological findings of the time, indicating that the Grecians had spawned Roman culture. American architects also favored the style for political reasons: the War of 1812 cast England in an unfavorable light; and public sentiment favored the Greeks in their war for independence in the 1820s.
Identify the style by its entry, full-height, or full-building width porches, entryway columns sized in scale to the porch type, and a front door surrounded by narrow rectangular windows. Roofs are generally gabled or hipped. Roof cornices sport a wide trim. The front-gable found in one subtype became a common feature in Midwestern and Northeastern residential architecture well into the 20th century. The townhouse variation is made up of narrow, urban homes that don’t always feature porches. Look for townhouses in Boston, Galveston, Texas., Mobile, Ala., New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., and Savannah, Ga.
Initiated by European architects—such as Mies van der Rohe—in the early 20th century, this is the style that introduced the idea of exposed functional building elements, such as elevator shafts, ground-to-ceiling plate glass windows, and smooth facades.
The style was molded from modern materials—concrete, glass, and steel—and is characterized by an absence of decoration. A steel skeleton typically supports these homes. Meanwhile, interior and exterior walls merely act as design and layout elements, and often feature dramatic, but nonsupporting projecting beams and columns. With its avant-garde elements, naturally the style appeared primarily in the East and in California.
Italianate homes, which appeared in Midwest, East Coast, and San Francisco areas between 1850 and 1880, can be quite ornate despite their solid square shape. Features include symmetrical bay windows in front; small chimneys set in irregular locations; tall, narrow, windows; and towers, in some cases. The elaborate window designs reappear in the supports, columns, and door frames.
This style emerged in 1853 when Boston merchant Thomas Larkin relocated to Monterey, Calif. The style updates Larkin’s vision of a New England Colonial with an Adobe brick exterior. The Adobe reflected an element of Spanish Colonial houses common in the Monterey area at the time. Later Monterey versions merged Spanish Eclectic with Colonial Revival styles to greater or lesser extents.
Larkin’s design also established a defining feature of Montereys: a second-floor with a balcony. At the time one-story homes dominated the Bay Area.
In today’s Montereys, balcony railings are typically styled in iron or wood; roofs are low pitched or gabled and covered with shingles—variants sometimes feature tiles—and exterior walls are constructed in stucco, brick, or wood.
Born out of the fundamental need for shelter, National-style homes, whose roots are set in Native American and pre-railroad dwellings, remain unadorned and utilitarian. The style is characterized by rectangular shapes with side gabled roofs or square layouts with pyramidal roofs. The gabled-front-and-wing style pictured here is the most prevalent type with a side-gabled wing attached at a right angle to the gabled front. Two subsets of the National style, known as “hall-and-parlor family” and “I-house,” are characterized by layouts that are two rooms wide and one room deep. Massed plan styles, recognized by a layout more than one room deep, often sport side gables and shed-roofed porches. You’ll find National homes throughout the country.
A well-publicized, world-class event can inspire fashion for years. At least that’s the case with the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which showcased cutting-edge classical buildings that architects around the country emulated in their own residential and commercial designs. The Neoclassical style remained popular through the 1950s in incarnations from one-story cottages to multilevel manses. Its identifying Ionic or Corinthian columned porches often extend the full height of the house. Also typical: symmetrical facades, elaborate, decorative designs above and around doorways, and roof-line balustrades (low parapet walls).
In suburban Chicago in 1893, Frank Lloyd Wright, America’s most famous architect, designed the first Prairie-style house, and it’s still a common style throughout the Midwest. Prairie houses come in two styles—boxy and symmetrical or low-slung and asymmetrical. Roofs are low-pitched, with wide eaves. Brick and clapboard are the most common building materials. Other details: rows of casement windows; one-story porches with massive square supports; and stylized floral and circular geometric terra-cotta or masonry ornamentation around doors, windows, and cornices.
Taking its cues from Native American and Spanish Colonial styles, chunky looking Pueblos emerged around 1900 in California, but proved most popular in Arizona and New Mexico, where many original designs still survive.
The style is characterized by flat roofs, parapet walls with round edges, earth-colored stucco or adobe-brick walls, straight-edge window frames, and roof beams that project through the wall. The interior typically features corner fireplaces, unpainted wood columns, and tile or brick floors.
A sub-style of the late Victorian era, Queen Anne is a collection of coquettish detailing and eclectic materials. Steep cross-gabled roofs, towers, and vertical windows are all typical of a Queen Anne home. Inventive, multistory floor plans often include projecting wings, several porches and balconies, and multiple chimneys with decorative chimney pots.
Wooden “gingerbread” trim in scrolled and rounded “fish-scale” patterns frequently graces gables and porches. Massive cut stone foundations are typical of period houses. Created by English architect Richard Norman Shaw, the style was popularized after the Civil War by architect Henry Hobson Richardson and spread rapidly, especially in the South and West.
Sometimes called the California ranch style, this home in the Modern family, originated there in 1930s. It emerged as one of the most popular American styles in the 1950s and 60s, when the automobile had replaced early 20th-century forms of transportation, such as streetcars.
Now mobile homebuyers could move to the suburbs into bigger homes on bigger lots. The style takes its cues from Spanish Colonial and Prairie and Craftsman homes, and is characterized by its one-story, pitched-roof construction, built-in garage, wood or brick exterior walls, sliding and picture windows, and sliding doors leading to patios.
Although they borrow from the Georgian’s classic lines, Regency homes eschew ornamentation. They’re symmetrical, two or three stories, and usually built in brick. Typically, they feature an octagonal window over the front door, one chimney at the side of the house, double-hung windows, and a hip roof. They’ve been built in the United States since the early 1800s.
This New England Colonial style got its name because the sharply sloping gable roof that resembled the boxes used for storing salt. The step roofline often plunges from two and one-half stories in front to a single story in the rear. In Colonial times, the lower rear portion was often used as a partially enclosed shed, which was oriented north as a windbreak. These square or rectangular homes typically have a large central chimney and large, double-hung windows with shutters. Exterior walls are made of clapboard or shingles. In the South this style is known as a “cat’s slide” and was a popular in the 1800s.
Popular in the Midwest and Northeast, this Victorian style was fashionable for public buildings during Ulysses S. Grant’s presidency, but its elaborate, costly detail fell out of favor in the late 1800s for economic reasons. Second empire homes feature windows, molded cornices, and decorative brackets under the eaves. One subtype sports a rectangular tower at the front and center of the structure.
A subset of the Modern style, Shed homes were particular favorites of architects in the 1960s and 1970s. They feature multiple roofs sloping in different directions, which creates multigeometric shapes; wood shingle, board, or brick exterior cladding; recessed and downplayed front doorways; and small windows. There’s virtually no symmetry to the style.
This American style originated in cottages along the trendy, wealthy Northeastern coastal towns of Cape Cod, Long Island, and Newport in the late 19th century. Architectural publishers publicized it, but the style was never as popular around the country as the Queen Anne. Shingle homes borrow wide porches, shingles, and asymmetrical forms from the Queen Anne.
They’re also characterized by unadorned doors, windows, porches, and cornices; continuous wood shingles; a steeply pitched roof line; and large porches. The style hints at towers, but they’re usually just extensions of the roof line.
Tradition has it that if you fire a shotgun through the front doorway of this long, narrow home, the bullet will exit directly through the back door. The style is characterized by a single story with a gabled roof. Shotguns are usually only one room wide, with each room leading directly into the next. Exterior features include a vent on the front gable and a full front porch trimmed with gingerbread brackets and ornamentation. Mail-order plans and parts for shotgun homes were widely available at the turn-of-the-century, making it a popular, low-cost structure to build in both urban and suburban settings.
Most common in the Southwest and Florida, Spanish-style architecture takes its cues from the missions of the early Spanish missionaries—such as the one at San Juan Capistrano in California—and includes details from the Moorish, Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance architectural styles. The houses usually have low-pitched tiled roofs, white stucco walls, and rounded windows and doors. Other elements may include scalloped windows and balconies with elaborate grillwork, decorative tiles around doorways and windows, and a bell tower or two.
A Modern style that architects created to sequester certain living activities–such as sleeping or socializing–split levels offered an multilevel alternative to the ubiquitous style in the 1950s. The nether parts of a typical design were devoted to a garage and TV room; the midlevel, which usually jutted out from the two-story section, offered “quieter” quarters, such as the living and dining rooms; and the area above the garage was designed for bedrooms.
Found mostly in the East and Midwest, split-levels, like their Ranch counterparts, were constructed with various building materials.
A member of the Victorian family, the Stick house boasts a lot of detailing. 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.
You’ll find traditional sticks in the Northeast and their sister, the Western Stick, in California. The Western Stick is rectangular with sliding glass doors, a small chimney, and large panes of glass.
This architecture style was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and continues to be a mainstay in suburbs across the United States. The defining characteristics are half-timbering on bay windows and upper floors, and facades that are dominated by one or more steeply pitched cross gables. Patterned brick or stone walls are common, as are rounded doorways, multi-paned casement windows, and large stone chimneys. A subtype of the Tudor Revival style is the Cotswold Cottage. With a sloping roof and a massive chimney at the front, a Cotswold Cottage may remind you of a picturesque storybook home.
Victorian architecture dates from the second half of the 19th century, when America was exploring new approaches to building and design.
Advancements in machine technology meant that Victorian-era builders could easily incorporate mass-produced ornamentation such as brackets, spindles, and patterned shingles. The last true Victorians were constructed in the early 1900s, but contemporary builders often borrow Victorian ideas, designing eclectic “neo-Victorians.” These homes combine modern materials with 19th century details, such as curved towers and spindled porches. A number of Victorian styles are recreated on the fanciful “Main Street” at Disney theme parks in Florida, California, and Europe.
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Copy Link
WESTFIELD, N.J. (April 19, 2023) – Coldwell Banker Realty is pleased to announce the formation of its new Westfield office, located at 209 Central Ave. in Westfield. Led by Branch Vice Presidents John Bradley and George Kraus, Coldwell Banker Realty in Westfield is the new home base for approximately 300 affiliated real estate agents serving home buyers and sellers throughout the Union County area.
