In the previous two issues of Northwest Renovation, this column has reviewed two house styles from the American Colonial Period: The Dutch Colonial, and the Cape Cod. This issue will look at the most common house style resulting from this period, known simply as “The Colonial Revival.”

Southwest Portland home designed by Ellis Laurence in 1927.

Northeast Portland Colonial Revival.

The Southeast Portland neighborhood known as “Colonial Heights” was named for its large Colonial Revival mansions.

Early Colonial Revival designed by Whidden and Lewis, in 1890.

Good example of “Lunette” windows in the attic of a Colonial Revival.

Northeast Portland home showing classical detailing surrounding the formal front entrance with a portico.

In the last quarter of the 19th century, many Americans felt overwhelmed by the rapid pace of industrialization that was occurring all around them. Former rural landscapes were being turned into industrial centers. American cities were overcrowded and often unhealthy. Many yearned for the simpler less stressful life they felt existed in late 18th and early 19th century America. This movement found architectural expression in the Colonial Revival buildings of the Philadelphia Centennial International Exhibition of 1876. There, visitors could wander through furnished mock-ups of charming colonial-style houses. Their low ceilings, simple cozy furniture, and orderly layout provided a stark contrast to the fussy asymmetry of most Victorian houses being built at the time.

The centennial year of 1876 also produced a rush to embrace all things “American.” Neo-Colonial houses got swept up in this surge of patriotic pride. The fact that Colonial houses were essentially Georgian houses of English origin was apparently a bridge that few ever crossed. Shortly after the fair, Colonial-style details began popping up as ornament applied to the exterior of otherwise conventional Victorian dwellings. By the mid-1880s, though, noted architects were designing full-blown copies of authentic Colonial houses. The Colonial Revival Style, in one form or another, lasted at least until the mid-1950s (some would say it is still with us). By any measure it has been the longest running house style in American history.

Portland was quick to embrace the Colonial Revival style. The first such houses were built here in the late-1880s — just a couple years later then the first prototype Colonial Revival homes on the East Coast. Architect William Whidden usually gets credit for designing the very first Colonial Revival home in Portland: the Lucien W. Wallace house built in 1888. It still stands proudly on the top of a knoll in NW Portland. Before coming to Portland, William Whidden had worked for the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White in New York. This influential architectural firm aggressively pushed for their version of Neo-Classicism (which included Colonial Revival) in East Coast architecture. Whidden carried on that tradition in Portland. One year after his Wallace House he teamed up with the like-minded architect Ion Lewis. The firm of Whidden and Lewis went on to design a long series of higher-end houses in the Colonial Revival Style.

Colonial Revival houses continued to be built in profusion during the boom years following the Lewis and Clark Exhibition of 1905. In fact, at one time Portland was known as the “Boston of the West” for its many fine Colonial style residences. Most of the local residential architects of the day designed at least some of their houses in the Colonial Revival style. Other than Whidden and Lewis, however, the only architect to become so thoroughly identified with Colonial Revival house design was Roscoe Hemenway. Hemenway practiced architecture from 1925 until shortly before his death in 1959. His was the generation that immediately followed Whidden and Lewis. A Hemenway pedigree on a house today still commands attention and respect.

In the early years of the Colonial Revival movement, most homes in that style were architect-designed and catered to an up-market clientele. As time progressed however, more Colonial Revival homes were “builder’s houses,” easily found in the many plan books circulating at that time. Also, the 1930s and 1940s saw the construction of a number of apartment complexes in the Colonial Revival style. We know at least one of these apartment complexes was designed by Roscoe Hemenway.

What are the identifiable characteristics of a Colonial Revival house? First and foremost they are rectangular with the long side facing the street. They are always two stories in height though they usually contain dormers for additional attic space. Most are built with a center entry/center hall plan. Windows (with shutters) are grouped symmetrically on either side of the entrance. Ornamentation is confined to simple classical details or may be absent altogether. Doorways are recessed or have a portico (small porch) sheltering the entrance. Glass transoms, either rectangular or elliptical, are found atop entrance doorways. Usually, a panel of glass sidelights on both sides surrounds front doors.

Though Portland is perhaps no longer known as the Boston of the West, we still have an abundant supply of Colonial Revival homes in our older (and not-so-old) neighborhoods. Where groupings of these houses occur together (try Eastmoreland, or the Vista Avenue district of SW Portland) it is indeed possible to picture oneself walking along the leafy streets of some New England Colonial town.

Jack Bookwalter is a freelance writer and architectural historian living in Portland, OR.