In the early 1880s, wealthy Americans sought comfortable, fashionable dwellings away from the cities for vacation retreats, primarily on the unspoiled Atlantic coast. As a result, the Victorian Shingle Style emerged.

Like many new emerging styles, the Shingle borrowed elements from other styles. It possessed the simplicity of the wood-built colonial houses, the strength of the Richardsonian Romanesque and the decorative woodwork of the Queen Anne. Less ornate and more horizontal than the Queen Anne house, the Shingle Style house is a rambling, free form, two- or three-story structure characterized by its unpainted wooden shingles. The shingles -- stretched smooth over rooflines and corners -- cover the entire surface of the home, giving it a unified look. Underneath the shingles are imposing, unique structures, including dormers, recessed balconies, and side towers with bell or conical roofs. Inside, large rooms, designed in an open, more free-flowing arrangement were precursors to the birth of modernism.

The Shingle Style was promoted by the international Arts and Crafts movement as a "back to nature" building idiom. It marked the beginning of a new era in architecture -- so powerful and exciting that it reduced the Queen Anne and the Richardsonian Romanesque to the status of mere groundwork for a mature and truly American style.

Few of the original Shingle Style houses survive. In the mid-1960s, the New Shingle Style emerged which, while significantly smaller than its 1880 Shingle predecessor, retained much of the same style and structure.