OOps it's 1878. Sorry for the typo!

Kathleen

I can't help you with defining the style of your house (it's an awesome house and I love that porch!) but I'd bet the folks at oldhouseweb.com could.

Congrats!

Thank you! I'm so excited. It's going to be a lot of work, but it sits on 43 acres, so we couldn't pass it up. I'll go check out the website you mentioned.

Kathleen

I don't know the style but it looks as tho it started out as one basic farmhouse and then just added on as they needed more space....like maybe four times or so.

Hi,
The low-pitch hip & gable roof, wide eave overhangs, and general massing make me want to say "Italianate" but it has been really remodeled into near-oblivion. And it's rather squatty for that style. The concrete wrap-around porch is later, like 1910. And for that matter, the foundation appears to be made of that same rock-faced concrete block. I think I see asbestos-cement shingles. I take it that you walk in to a large-ish entry hall with the stairs to the left and that rectangular window is on a landing? I really wonder what amount of this house is 1878, since most all of the exterior finishes seem to be at least 25 years later?
It seems like a nice setting and all. Is it in a windy location? That can account for the roof pitch being made lower- less wind stress on the structure.
I guess my final answer is vernacular/Princess Anne/farmhouse.
Casey

I want to thank you for sending me to the oldhouseweb.com site! According to what I found out, it looks like a greek revival style. Mainly due to the friezes and the wraparound porch with the columns.

Here's a link to a picture of the front of the house. I just realized they are out of order on the website, and it's not too clear which photo is the front!

Here is a link that might be useful: {{!gwi}}

Mustang,

Well, that's an extremely eclectic-style house, but I'm not sure I see much Greek Revival detail.

Greek Revival frieze boards are most commonly wider along the vertical plane of the house than yours appear to be and the porch columns are definitely 20 c. styling.

However, I think Casey has spotted the essential core which is a farm house in the very-popular-in-the-period vernacular Italianate style. If you look at the relatively narrow "main box" and the roof pitch and deep return on those eaves you can see some clues that typify that style here, at least here in upstate NY. It's the right style for that age of building, too. It looks to me like there may be additonal detail buried under some of the later additions and siding.

You certainly will have your work cut out for you surveying the complexity of that structure and deciding what to keep and what might be better removed to reveal the underlying "bones".

I hope you will be able to take some time to devote to just cleaning it and studying the building before you embark on a big renovation project. New house owners are always keen, often to the point of desperation, to rush right in. But I can tell you from my own experience over many years, that the ideas you come up with after you've lived there for several months, better yet a year, will be so much better than anything that occurs to you now. What you're thinking about now, has little to do with this house; let it tell you what it needs.

The very first thing to do (other than clean, clean, clean ...) is make an accurate measured drawing of the house as it was when you bought it. And in your case with amazing complexity of that structure, this should keep you busy all winter! That first drawing will stand you in good stead down the road as you embark on renovating.

I'm attaching my standard virtual "house warming present": a link to a series of very useful Technical Bulletins on old house renovation, care and inspection. These are published by the National Parks Service and I've found the information accurate and thorough, and more than once I've embarked on a new project with only these as a guide.

Please come back tell us what you discover in your house, and feel free to ask further questions.

Molly~

Here is a link that might be useful: Preservation Bulletin series: Every thing an new old house owners needs to know about!

I'd call it what's left of a folk Victorian. A lot has gone missing. I've got a feeling you may have had bracketing up there under the eaves.
A Folk Victorian generally will have essences of whatever architectural style was in vogue at the time it was built. In 1878 Italianate was very popular, so many houses built then may have had bracketing, a squashed down villaish roof line, etc., but they wouldn't be completely Italianate.
Another folk Victorian might have essence of Greek revival, or those built a bit later in the century might have some Queen Anne bits.
Folk Victorians can be very gingerbready or very simple, or just plain fun and whimsical, it all depended on the wishes of the builder.
By the way, that wide window in the front is seen more often in the mid 1880's and on. Usually the windows of 1878 tended to be on the narrower side. A narrow window would look out of place in that spot, though.

Thanks so much for all the info! You guys are awesome. I'm so excited. I can't wait to get in there and see what's been buried in those walls.

I may get lucky and be able to get a picture of what it used to look like. I guess the current owners are the grandchildren of the original owners (or something of that sort), so I'm hoping they may have some old pictures of the house when it was younger.

I think it has so much potential to be a gorgeous house.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{!gwi}}

I do so love an old farmhouse, this one could be really gorgeous with some elbow grease! Where is it located?

If it had a central hall, it would be an I-house, with ells and dependecies. But there isn't a central hall. I'm mildly intrigued by what the floorplan originally was, and has evolved into.
Historians of folk architecture call a hall-less two-room plan a "double-pen" with its origins in the medieval hall& parlor layout. But the typical double pen house must have a front door into each room. Please let us know if you find another front door buried under those shingles!
Casey

It looks to me like an unusual variation on an American Four-Square. Unusual because of the location of the dormers, which usually would be centered on each side, rather than over to one side. They were very eclectic (maybe even eccentric) in decorative features.

I think it must have had additions over the years too, the parts that are "less tall". Not that I'm any expert.

One link, another below: http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/12269.shtml

If you just search on American Four-Square, you'll get a lot of hits.

Here is a link that might be useful: American Four-Square

When all these old houses we are trying to name and place in their correct boxes were built, they didn't use style names. That's why many are hard to categorize.
Nobody was building a Foursquare. That was a name penned long after these houses were built, like every other label.
If you told someone they lived in an "I" house they'd look at you like you were some sort of nut.
That's why they came up with Folk Victorian and Vernacular. Not all Victorians are Italianate, Gothic, or Queene Anne or Second Empire, etc.

Have you noticed that every house you see with shutters on the windows is categorized by real estate agents as a "colonial"? It doesn't matter if it's a raised ranch, a split entry, a foursquare,...if it's got shutters, it's colonial.

I've got an architect's sketch here in front of me from the 1890's. If you looked at it from the right side, you'd call it a Shingle house. From the left you wouldn't. If you saw a picture of just the front porch you'd want to call it a Craftsman style house. The big middle window on the front gable is Palladian, and the little porch on the second floor has a little colonial style railing with urn shaped finials on the corner posts so it's Colonial revival, right? Under the Palladian window, on the second floor are a pair of windows with a decorative area between them that is reminiscent of Olde Englishe. This olde Englishe look is seen in several other areas from what I can see.
The general shape of the house is fairly irregular because of assorted bays, porches, gables and an octangle tower roof in one corner, so we can safely label it a Queen Anne overall, but you'd have a field day trying to subcategorize it.

What you say is true, they weren't built "as" a four-square. What we now call Victorians weren't called that by their builders and original owners. But the "four-square" central part is what defines and groups a four-square, from whence almost any sort of design style and element was integrated. Gives the owner of one some latitude, but also requires a lot of detective work, since there were so many different ideas about what to include.

Around here (southcentral Wisconsin), I see a lot of farm/farmettes with a house listed as American Folk -- now THERE is a huge catch-all! LOL!

Could the single-story section in the back (between the 2 story portion and the tiny addition) be the original farmhouse? Something about the broken angle of the roofline looks very vernacular to me.

Are the roofed box-returns a Colonial Revival detail? I agree that it does have Foursquare massing. And it does seem to want brackets under those gorgeous wide eaves.

Very cool house!