Comments on: Style Points | The Four Square

By: charlotte roofers

charlotte roofers — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:21:43 +0000

What an awesome foursquare, such detail and the wide eaves with exposed rafters really gives it appeal. i do alot of roofing in charlotte nc as well as remodeling and painting and I happen to be in the middle of remodeling and roofing a similar home in the historic district of salisbury nc. we only used recycled rough cut lumber that came from an original home built before 1930.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:25:43 +0000

The four square also gets the maximum living space out of a small city lot. And they were available as mass-produced kits from Sears or as plans builders could customize to suit local tastes and materials.

In a way, not altogether different than the McMansions crammed into subdivisions in the exurbs these days. But the four squares were built when high-quality materials and labor was in abundant supply, and with the passage of time have become charming.

Eric

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 06:44:43 +0000

Thanks for dropping by the old house, and your encouragement to look up a few old pattern books. Duly noted.

For clarification, my comment about the Prairie School reference wasn’t directed at the brackets…but at the exaggerated overhanging eaves.

For frequent visitors of the blog, I encourage you to visit this guy’s blog, called A Town Square: http://www.heckeranddecker.wordpress.com.

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brutha.

By: aandh

aandh — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:20:30 +0000

The brackets are also a reference to the dentils of classical architecture, fyi. And of course the extended eaves are a definite nod to the Craftsman house, as you suggest. I am a bit more skeptical of the Prairie reference, but perhaps. Wright never held up his eaves with brackets, or anything else for that matter. That’s why they all droop….

One of the reasons why the Craftsman and the four square were popular with builders was because they had access to plans and elevations via pattern books. Pattern books have a much deeper history in domestic architecture, and not just in the US. Would make an interesting further post – think Palladio.

Also, Sears sold a four square model as part of their kit homes, and it was very popular. There are many of these all over, including multiple copies here in Washington.

Nice post! I have always loved the Craftsman motto, als ik kan: “to the best of my ability.” Reminds me of a great quote from Chaucer: “The life so short, the craft so long to learn.”