Rosemary Thornton
Story and Photos by
Rosemary Thornton, contributing editor
The Old House Web
You’d be hard pressed to find a housing style more typically American than the foursquare. Economical to build and uniquely suited to make use of every square inch of the house itself and tiny city lots, this style can be found in city neighborhoods across the country.
The American Foursquare is known by a variety of terms including box house, a cube, a double cube or a square type American house. It first appeared on the housing scene around 1890 and remained popular well into the 1930s.
The foursquare is typically a two-and-a-half-story house on a full basement, with a monitor dormer (a dormer with a roof-line that mirrors the primary roof) in the attic. Most foursquares have pyramidal hip roofs (which come to a peak in the center). Front porches span the full width of the house, with two, three or four simple columns supporting the porch roof.
Perhaps most notably, the foursquare is a nearly square house with square shaped interior rooms. The first floor typically has four rooms, including an entry foyer or reception hall, living room, dining room and kitchen. Upstairs, three bedrooms and a bath all politely sit in their own corners.
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(Click on any picture for a larger view) |
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From the front, many foursquares are symmetrical with a center front door and equal groupings of windows on either side, upstairs and downstairs. Others have an offset front door but with upstairs windows being perfectly or nearly symmetrical.
Exterior sidings may be masonry plain or sculpted cinder block, brick or stucco, but are usually frame, with clapboard or shingles. Frame foursquares may have different sidings on the upper and lower walls. Clapboard is a favored siding material for the first story with shingles on the upper story, and a beltcourse delineating the different materials. Dining rooms often feature a bay window to break up the straight lines of the house.
Because of the straightforward lines and simplicity of design, the American Foursquare was especially popular as a kit home. Sears offered 15 different styles of the foursquare, while Gordon Van Tine (based in Iowa) had more than 20 styles of foursquares. Aladdin, Lewis-Liberty, Harris Brothers, Sterling Homes and Bennett (all based in the Midwest) each offered a wide variety of foursquares in their catalogs.
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Sears Kit Houses in foursquare style |
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 Gladstone model Sears Kit Home in original condition. |
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 Sears foursquare kit home, the Fullerton model. |
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A lesser-known style of foursquare is the one-story foursquare. Known as the Workingmans Foursquare, it had a pyramidal hip roof and full, tall basement underneath. Company towns, developed immediately before and after World War I, often have clusters of one-story foursquares.
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About the Author
By Rosemary Thornton, contributing editor
