From Roots of Home: the Ten Colonial Cradles America’s classic home styles were born in ten regional cradles that nurtured distinctive house forms rooted in Old World traditions. Below are the ten regions -- and the main vernacular house styles that emerged from each region's particular blend of culture, geography, climate, and resources:
The first French settlement was founded at Port-Royal on the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1604, followed by exploration of the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley.
NORMANDY FARMHOUSE, ACADIAN COTTAGE
New England Coast
English Pilgrims established Plimoth Plantation on the New England coast in 1621 and spurred the founding of compact villages from Connecticut to Maine.
SALTBOX, CAPE COD COTTAGE, GARRISON COLONIAL
Hudson Valley
The Dutch founded New Amsterdam in 1624, while French Huguenots and Flemish Walloons settled into the Hudson Valley from New Jersey to upstate New York.
DUTCH GABLE TOWNHOUSE, HUDSON STONE FARMHOUSE, DUTCH GAMBREL
Delaware Valley
The Delaware Valley was first home to New Sweden (1638) and later Pennsylvania (1682), a haven for English Quakers as well as German and Scots-Irish émigrés.
SCANDINAVIAN LOG CABIN, PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH FARMHOUSE
Chesapeake Bay
On Chesapeake Bay, the Virginia colony was founded by the English at Jamestown in 1607, followed by Maryland established at St. Mary’s City in 1634.
CATSLIDE COTTAGE, WILLIAMSBURG COLONIAL, PALLADIAN MANOR
Carolina Low Country
The Carolina Low Country and its tidewater coast were first settled in Charleston in 1670 by English planters with roots in the Caribbean islands.
TIDEWATER PLANTATION, CHARLESTON SINGLE HOUSE, SOUTHERN I-HOUSE
Florida Peninsula
The Spanish established North America’s first settlement in Florida at St. Augustine in 1565, as well as a mission chain linked through Tallahassee to Pensacola.
SPANISH COLONIAL CASA, ST. AUGUSTINE HOUSE
Gulf Coast
Settled by the French at New Orleans in 1718, the Gulf Coast attracted French and Spanish Creoles, Acadians from Canada, and free blacks from the Caribbean.
CREOLE COTTAGE, FRENCH COLONIAL PLANTATION, SHOTGUN HOUSE
Southwest Borderlands
Starting in the early 17th century the Spanish crisscrossed the Southwest borderlands founding presidios, missions, and pueblos from Arizona to Texas.
PUEBLO ADOBE, DOGTROT LOG CABIN, TEXAS ROCK HOUSE
Alta California
Alta California was the last Spanish frontier where a chain of twenty one missions was created from 1769-1823 along the coastline from San Diego to Sonoma.
SPANISH COLONIAL CASA, MONTEREY HOUSE
