Design Ideas: Queen Anne Style

Among all Victorian style architecture, Queen Anne houses are the most common. They can be distinguished by several different features, which gives it an eclectic feel. This style features asymmetrical shapes, steep roof pitches at various elevations, and elements that emulated England’s folk architecture.

The Queen Anne style is defined by gable, usually a dominant front-facing gable, combined with one or more polygonal square or round towers. Houses in this style often have different wall textures, with a mix of exterior cladding that may include clapboard, patterned masonry, brick, stone, or other decorative shingles. This style also typically features a covered porch that often warps around one of two sides.

Characteristics

Queen Anne-style architecture is mostly associated with a kind of “anything goes” style, where it contains steeply-pitched, irregular roof shapes, patterned shingles, bay windows, picturesque massing, polychromatic and decorative ornamentation, one-story porches, and occasional towers and turrets.

Profiles

The dominant exterior cladding for Queen Anne houses are often clapboard sidings. There are also home examples that feature beaded, Dutch lap, and board and batten profiles.

Roof

Because of its eclectic style, the Queen Anne style is the embodiment of the combination roof, incorporating dormers and turrets or towers. Its most distinguishable feature, however, is the front-facing gable roof. Most roofs make use of clay tiles and shingles as material.

Windows

Queen Anne homes are embellished with bay windows and oriels, sometimes part of a turret. Windows are relatively simple. Elaborate window sashes featured stained glass in the upper portion of a double-hung window or in a transom.

Color

Depending on the period you would like to reflect, Queen Anne style houses can feature multiple color styles. For example, in the 1800s, multiple colors were used to draw attention to multiple different design elements. After 1900, white and light creams dominated.