American buildings were less ornate. Symmetrical, they had a central hall with a stairway, and all central rooms led from this hall. The later colonial houses typically had a distinct living, dining, and family room, with bedrooms on the second floor. The chimneys were immense.

The South grew rich faster than the North, with the high price of a large gap between the wealthy landowners and poor slaves. Plantation houses and slave quarters were built, and English colonists patterned their house after both the manor house and lowly cottages. Rooms were square, but there was a distinctive columned front door.

 

When the colonists figured out that wooden chimneys and thatched roofs tended to catch fire, they had to rethink home design. Then they heard about the Great Fire of London. Only eight brick and four stone houses are known to have been built in New England before 1700.

 

Brick had just started to come into use in England when they left, but they couldn't find the lime needed to make either bricks or plaster walls. Few builders had made their way across the ocean.

 

Georgian houses are geometrical even in the layout of interior rooms, and frequently have wings.

 

In the North, buildings were commonly wood with clapboard or shingle cladding. In the South, Georgian houses were usually brick, but occasionally built of stone and stucco.

 

Georgians used a hip roof, sometimes with dormers. At times they used balustrades embellished with decorative moldings and trim.

 

Often made from wood, the double-hung sash windows had small panes, usually 12 over 12 or 9 over 9 panes. There were often decorative pediments over the windows, or in brick homes, decorative brick headers above the windows.

 

Entry doors were decorated with pediments, broken pediments, arch tops and ogee caps. Northern houses often had wooden pilasters, while Southern doorways were enhanced with brick patterns.