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The American Colonial Home

Hampton Luzak

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Hampton Luzak is a Wyoming-based professional who has applied her creative approach to the fashion and media industries. Currently, Hampton Luzak restores historic homes along the East Coast, many of which were designed in the iconic colonial style.

When English immigrants arrived in the colonies, they brought with them preferences for building designs shaped by English architects such as Christopher Wren and James Gibbs. Wren, Gibbs, and other architects of the day were largely influenced by the clean lines of classical Greek and Roman architecture, as well as its careful, geometric detailing. The result of their inspiration was a very popular home design that is now known as the colonial.
The American colonial is distinguished by a symmetrical façade with a door in the center and a simple gabled roof. Typically, there are two windows flanking each side of the front door and five windows on the second floor. During the early 18th century, the home had two large, identical rooms on the top floor and ground floor that were separated by a hallway. Later, the houses had four rooms on the first and second floors, with a central chimney that serviced all eight rooms.
Colonial homes throughout the colonies differed depending on the region in which they were found. Homes built in the Southern Colonies, for example, usually featured higher ceilings to help improve ventilation during the warm summer months. Also, in contrast to their brick-sided Virginian counterparts, colonial homes in the northern regions usually featured wood siding, as forests were more plentiful than clay deposits.