Nostalgic Style

Colonial Revival (1880 - 1940)

This Petaluma Colonial is an example of a modern interpretation that remains true to its historical roots

Identifying features:

• Front door accentuated with decorative crown and/or entry porch
• Façades with symmetrically balanced windows and centered door
• Windows with double-hung sashes, usually with multiplane glazing in one or both sashes
• Windows frequently in adjacent pairs or triples

Gracing the “Vintage Flats”, Colonial revivals are found along “B”, “D”, “I”, and 6th streets. Although a “Nostalgic” style, many of Petaluma’s Colonial homes are actually of recent construction. Take a stroll down B street to see some of the most fantastic examples.

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Historical information provided by Realtor.com

A classic D Street Colonial

In its early phase (1880-1915) the Colonial Revival tended to involve grandiose structures that incorporated designs characteristic of the original Colonial style: Palladian windows, gambrel roofs, pedimented porticos, columns, classical detailing such as swags and urns and crisp, white trim. While these larger homes showed more restraint than did the showier Chateauesque and Romanesque styles, they were rarely historically correct copies. It wasn't until later, between 1915 and 1935, that Colonial Revival fashion shifted toward a truer facsimile of the Colonial prototype.

In the 1940s and '50s, a further simplification was made (largely due to the depression and changing postwar fashions), and Colonial Revivals were built that only suggested, rather than replicated, their Colonial predecessors.

The Colonial Revival style began after the American Centennial in 1876. It was then that the public developed a new fascination with their Colonial roots. The anti-England sentiment that had spawned the Greek Revival had largely abated, and American expatriates found themselves suddenly hungering for their homeland. By the 1890s, architects could not build houses that fed that nostalgic fervor fast enough, and the Colonial Revival became a staple of American domestic design. It continues in all its various forms and deviations to this day.

Search Other Styles:

• Craftsman/Arts and Crafts - Practical and Open yet Inspiring
• Spanish-Mediterranean and Spanish-Eclectic 1890 - Present California’s Romantic Style
• Queen Anne Victorian (1880-1910) - Romantic, Exuberant Style
• Nostalgic Style - Colonial Revival (1880 - 1940)
• Victorian Stick Style (1860-1885) - Colorful and Unrestrained
• Suburban Style - The Ranch House (1932-1980)

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