Circa 1890 — 1935
The Italian Renaissance style was a very popular building style in the United States, for both vernacular homes and high style examples. Unlike the earlier Italianate style that was an idealistic view of Italian homes which spread through pattern books, the Italian Renaissance style was built to be more true to the Italian style of building since travel was more widespread and photographs of Italy‘s grand homes could be used as examples. The popular forms of this style was a hipped roof with an asymmetrical façade. a hipped roof form with one or more projecting wings, an L-shaped floor plan with a hipped roof, and a flat roof form that had a large, ornate cornice and a roofline balustrade.
The roofs of these style homes had wide, overhanging eaves that were usually boxed in and bracketed. A majority of these roofs were also clad with ceramic tiles. The ground floor windows of an Italian Renaissance home were arched and most examples of this style would have had smaller windows on the upper levels when compared to those on the main level. Italian Renaissance structures were almost always of masonry construction. These homes were typically decorated with a belt course, quoins, and rustification on the ground level. A unique feature of some Italian Renaissance homes was the use of a recessed porch that was colonnaded or built to resemble a Palladian window.
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