Circa 1860 – 1890
The Stick style was another of the Victorian era architectural styles, but it tended to be more of a transition form between the Gothic Revival and the later Queen Anne form. Unlike the previous styles where a wall was simply a canvas upon which the decoration was nailed, the Stick style used the wall cladding itself as a means to decorate the home. The use of the wall as decoration influenced the Queen Anne form that followed in 1880. It is different from the structural half-timbering of the English Tudor style in that the Stick form, and its use of timbering and flat stick-work, was strictly for decoration and not structural.
The basic house structures of the Stick form was the towered house, the town house, and any other variations of the Stick home. The latter could be built in a front- or side-gabled roof, a mansard roof, a steep, pitched hipped roof, and even a hipped roof with one or more cross gables. The tower subtype was built with any of the above mentioned roof type but with the addition of a tower. A Stick style town house was almost always found in the urban environment but unlike the other two Stick forms, the townhouse had a flat roof. The number one indication of a stick styled home was the ornamental use of wooden boards, or sticks, to create the look of half timbering. In the gaps that were left between these boards were shingles or other boards used to create a contrasting texture and a corner board that was used at every wall junction. Often the rafters of these homes were left exposed and decorative trusses were placed in the gables, porch gables, and/or any dormers. The town house subtype, unlike the other two subtypes, had stick-work that was usually attached vertically and extended up to brackets at the roof gable. Vertical wood elements were also placed around the windows and at the corners of the structure and square bay windows were very popular on the Stick town house.
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