I grew up in a house made of bricks in Ohio. So yes, to answer your question bricks are a thing in the US!

Why do I rarely see any, Jeb? I know it is a slow and skilled building process, compared to Hilti guns and timber frames, but it was basically our cheapest building material...it is only recently that prefabricated building has become a thing - I have NEVER lived in a house which wasn't built from the bottom up with brick courses...plus, they are one of the most beautiful and versatile building materials to use in the landscape. TBF, here in the UK, most of our indigenous timber vanished in an orgy of shipbuilding, so timber frames have never really been much of thing in the UK. Another thing I always forget is how young the US actually is, without the endless centuries of building here in Europe.

@rosaprimula, your Q was regarding the US but if I can reply as a resident of the commonwealth country of Canada.....in the province of Ontario the primary cladding material for home residential construction is for sure "brick".

Not talking about cladding though - this is a thing here too, but nowadays, the framework is essentially steel and concrete blocks with bricks just used as an outer facing. Prior to around 1960, just about all UK building was 2 courses of brick (or stone if the geology permitted - my local building material as a kid was something called 'millstone grit' . Often with a cavity for insulation but not always, built up from a foundation and tied together with particular 'bonds' and sometimes, metal ties. Anyway, am now off on an internet odyssey into the US brick industry...

I know of no gardens which do not have some remnants of brick paths, brick edgings, walls and just about anyone can lay their hands on various bricks for this and that (they are all over the allotments, holding down nets, edging beds and so on.- one of our most ubiquitous materials. And obviously, I love them utterly, for their versatility and beauty.

The house I live in now is considered 'new build' although still solid brick, built in 1960...and the youngest house I have ever lived in - most have been well over 100 years old, some even centuries old. I am looking at a lot of modern building (from 1980s onwards) and knowing absolutely it will be gone in 40 years.

Aw bless!

Totally agree with your dad.

I grew up in a brick rowhouse. There were three streets of brick rowhouses, which were built at the turn of the 20th century for immigrant workers at the Remington Arms plant (which became the General Electric factory). The factory itself was brick, as were many factories built in the 1800's.

So yes, there is plenty of brick, but now that you mention it, I think brick *homes* are not nearly as common as wood homes, and most newer public buildings (banks, office buildings etc) are not brick either. And as you say, I'm guessing the newer ones that ARE brick just have some kind of facing. In my experience - which is just a general afterthought, not even an observation and definitely not a scientific study lol - in New England, brick seemed to be used much more in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The GE building before dismantling a few years ago. I watched the sun set every evening over this building during my childhood. Sad to see it go. To add insult to injury they closed down my old (brick lol) high school and rebuilt it here. My childhood is disappearing!

Old postcard, from the other side of the building.

And I do work in a very lovely old brick building, a library built in 1894

I will say it seems the brick here in the US is not nearly as lovely as the brick in England lol. Perhaps it's my romanticism poking through, but when I see photos of old brick houses, or villages, or even just garden walls with roses growing up them, it makes me sigh, think how lovely!, and wish I lived there. When I see brick here in my home area, I just think "industrial times" lol.

:)

Dee

Oh, that's funny...little Blues Brothers. You all look cute!

I'm in the US, lived in California age 8 to 18, and don't remember many brick homes there. More stucco with tile roofs. It may have changed. I've lived in North Carolina for about 36 years now and there is much more brick here. I live in an old town and there are brick downtown buildings, factory buildings, churches, and homes. Also wooden homes. I live in a house built in the 1890's. It started out as a wood house but the owners bricked it.

My house is almost 4,000 sq feet but was moved, I think in the 1940's, bricks and all.

When it was moved some of the bricks fell off and were replaced in a somewhat slipshod manner. So you can see where that was done. It's ok by me. OUr house cost next to nothing when we bought it compared to today's prices.

HEre it is:

Here is the house across the street from my grandma's house. When I was a kid it was a nursing home..lots of old people on the porch in rocking chairs. There was a slide from an upstairs window as a fire escape for the old people. Now this house is a bed and breakfast place called The Duchesse of Little Rock. I used to want this house when I was a kid. It sold for not much money when I was young and if I'd had the money I would have bought it. My cousin recently sent me a book about haunted houses and this house was on the cover.

I was taught that there aren’t many brick houses in Caliornia due to the risk of earthquakes.

I can’t post the link but if you google Tacaro Farms, Washington Post, you should find an article about an estate lival to me that was built by a brick magnate. It may be of interest to you. Many older sections of cities where buildings are closely spaced were predominantly brick or local stone because of the fire, but I’d agree that brick is not used much as a building material in the US these days and that is probably in part due in part to an abundance of timber and steel, but also, because of the flexibility they provide in terms of remodeling and expanding. We really love moving/removing walls.

rosaprimula, What an interesting & thought provoking question you’ve asked of your US friends here. And, Jeb, what a great picture of such cute little boys! Blues Brothers indeed! So, rosa, my first thoughts were that yes indeed brick homes were common in the US - note the past tense. Our historic first 13 states - all East coast - are filled with brick homes & brick commercial buildings. I thought about my home town, Anaconda, Montana in the West & the nearby towns. Again, those towns are filled with many old brick homes & commercial factories and town businesses with many brick buildings. In nearby Butte, Montana where the historic copper mines are located, there’s a residential area with many old Arts & Crafts era homes built of “Clinker“ (or klinker) brick. That’s brick with imperfections - like ’seconds’ from a factory. These homes have an interesting look.

I think the easiest & shortest answer to why brick homes aren’t commonly built in the US is the cost factor. The other factor is the available skill set of brick layers in US. In the post war housing boom (WW II) in early 1950’s many homes were needed for the new families of all the returning war veterans. Homes were built fast & inexpensively of wood. In hotter areas of US - think desert climates like Arizona, cement block became the standard for less expensive and easier to cool homes. Now, stucco is more common.

I looked up some info on brick layers & brick masons. There’s a difference. The bricklayers union does still exist. I read that there are less than 4,000 brick layers in the US, and the projected need over next decade is for 5,900 workers in the trade. Sounds to me that for brick home building, cost will always be a prime factor.

Yep, it's a diminishing skillset here too...but I have always had builders in my family and can certainly lay several courses of bricks in a day (and point them in with proper weatherpointing). Because so much of our housing stock is brick (with all the longevity of such building), there will always be a need for skilled bricklayers and indeed, all sorts of wetwork. I do despair of the shoddy levels of modern building though...and yet the prices still reflect the idea that a house will be passed onto to descendents over generations, whereas current standards just look like they are going to be slums within a generation. Something of a con is being perpetrated on the public...but the whole' housing as investment opportunity' bubble is out of control and utterly unsustainable.

It seems to me that most new houses here are built of brick. The McMansions are mostly brick.

Here in New England there is a lot of brick. I'm not sure what kind of construction or where the bricks came from, but next time I am near some I'll take some photos of the public buildings in the area.

@Markay MD-Zone 7A (8A on new map) Your note on abundance of timber & steel struck me. I think the abundance of timber part is changing — though wood is a renewable resource it’s not quickly renewable. Seems to me the trend is towards fewer wood products due to that fact & also the increasing fire risk everywhere in the West where the timber industry used to reign. No more shake roofs or wood siding - cement is it!

Short answer is that load-bearing masonry is much more expensive (material, labor, and shipping) to build than stick framing. The longer answer is a semester-long architectural history course ;)

erasmus that old Victorian is absolutely stunning! What I would give to live in a house like that, brick or wood!

Adorable photo, Jeb! Love the hats!

KW, of course you are right about the eastern seaboard and old brick homes. Just think of places like Alexandria, VA, or Beacon Hill in Boston, the many brick homes (rowhouses again?) in Philly and Baltimore.

But again, these are older. And mostly city homes. Seems as people moved to the burbs the style of building homes changed. I'm sure for many reasons.

Fun thread!

:)

Dee

I LOVE brick! There's a few old solid brick homes not far from me that I'd love to have for myself, one is quite small and lovely! Otherwise, beyond those few "real" brick homes, it's mostly just for appearance sake cladding that although looks okay nice, is not the same at all.

Glad you enjoyed seeing it, Diggerdee. It sure captured my imagination when I was a kid. In California my parents owned a small tract house in a beautiful area, Palos Verdes peninsula, and then they owned a bigger tract house at the top of the hill, or small mountain it was. But it seemed my parents had no love for old things. I liked everything old and think I got it from my grandma's house with her big porch and dusty attic and little old gas space heaters, nooks and crannies and screened in sleeping porch. And that house across the street.

I went up in that house one time, was given a tour. There were twin curving staircases. I went up in the attic and looked out the little windows of the tower. Quite a good view. If I go back to Little Rock someday I want to spend a night in the bed and breakfast place it is now.

My grandma's house was brick and stucco, not nearly as impressive as that house across the street but I loved it a lot. LIttle Rock had a lot of low stone walls bordering properties and I loved that...it's one thing I really like about NC...the little rock walls.

Even new gas stations and strip centers are mostly built of brick here. I think it's attractive.

erasmus, a bit off topic, but I absolutely adore old victorian houses. The city I grew up in had many, many, many of them (including a few belonging to P.T. Barnum). Unfortunately, many, many, many were torn down for "urban renewal" (including a few belonging to P.T. Barnum) and most of the ones that are left are NOT in good areas of town - and are divided up into umpteen apartments and not always kept up well. They just built such beautiful houses back then - such attention to detail.

My grandmother's house was built about 1909, I think, nothing fancy, but it had a few very small stained glass windows in the kitchen above the regular windows, a nice handrail going upstairs, and a wonderful door with a clear leaded window and the most beautiful doorknob with an ornate backplate. So ornately carved. We used that old skeleton key till the day we moved out. Such lovely little touches in such a modest house.

Even the rowhouse I grew up in had quite a substantial, somewhat fancy handrail going upstairs, and some beautiful carved wood molding around the inside of the front door, and the trim around the doorways wasn't super fancy but not like the standard boring plain trim of today either. And this was in housing built for immigrant Russian workers.. Really quite nice!

I so wanted an old victorian when we bought a house, but I realized while house-shopping that these for the most part seem to be inner-city, or at least urban houses. In my neck of the woods when you get to the suburbs, an old house is usually an old farmhouse, which has it's own beauty, but it's not a big old rambling Victorian. And either those urban Victorians are outrageously expensive, or cheap as dirt but in terrible neighborhoods. So now I have a cape hahaha! Just not the same!

:)

Dee

Brick is king in my neck of the woods -- houses built out of any other material are generally considered "less than" brick, it's the standard everything is judged by.

I think it is very much a regional thing. You see very little brick construction on the west coast, mostly because it is so much younger in terms of habitation. And of course this is where the timber industry was concentrated as well so plenty of raw material available for residential construction. You can still find a few brick commercial buildings in the heart of older west coast cities but most are concrete, steel and glass.

I remember the very wonderful old houses in San Francisco ...more Victorian style I think. Then the very wonderful big old houses in Oakland and Berkeley. Not quite as old I think.

Diggerdee, maybe there were more skilled craftsmen back then. Probably a lot of people tried to get at least some beauty into their home construction. I wanted a big Victorian also, really I wanted a wooden one. We found a pretty one near Charlotte for not a bad price...$70,000 36 years ago, but the lady had kept her house overrun with cats and the smell was soaked into the wood floors. I kind of doubt there are many really intrigueing old fixer upper houses left at a bargain price.

I'm sure people in the UK and Europe and elsewhere think it's funny when we think a house is really old if it was built in the 1800's. I'd like to see some really old buildings.

My house is pretty plain but it has a good sense of space, some nice woodwork and stairs and old tub. Definitely is not in a fancy neighborhood but I much prefer it to the snobby subdivision we lived in in TX. Most people are proud of their home here however small. If it's on the wrong side of the tracks I'm ok with it as I love the sound of the train going by.

My grandma's neighborhood went downhill in the 60's or so and houses sold really cheap. Now it has recovered.

If there were any brick Victorians in San Francisco they would have been gone after the 1906 earthquake.

Around where I live most houses are not made of brick. But a lot of churches are and they really fascinate me. 2 weeks ago I passed a historical town while on the job and saw one church completely brick and covered in english ivy. Seeing classic looking settings like that just take me back in time that I never got to experience. I love the victorian looks of it and I wish there were more houses like that around here. So excited to visit UK for the first time in my life next month

Right, onto the second bit - does anyone use brick in their gardens. As I have said, they are absolutely ubiquitous here and used as pot stands, edging, coping, ...as well as the obvious walls, paths and raised beds. I have brick walls and brick floors although the raised beds are rendered concrete blocks.The base of my greenhouse is brick, laid in a herringbone pattern (by me, no less).

I have really enjoyed reading the fascinating replies - thank you all so very much for helping this ignoramous out.

I have a brick patio. It's impossible to keep weeded. Weedy Veronica, and Chickweed take up residence before the snow melts giving way to Spotted Spurge and Portulaca later on. I have at least 1 Monarda punctata this year that I spotted in the bricks. The strawberries enjoy the bricks. I admire the long lasting, perpetual,fortified brick and stone buildings of Europe. With the increase in tornadoes because of global warming, people would be safer in brick homes instead of the cheap, shoddy shacks that new homes are today.

This could be the side of a house in England. Are there certain plants that you wouldn't want growing out of your brick walls, like Buddleja? Redwoods? I just discovered Cymbalaria muralis and I love it.

There's my precious with what strange partner species?

I too have a brick patio. I don't think the person who put it in ever put sand between the bricks, so I get lots of weeds as well - and my columbines have reseeded there too. I have to say I have moss growing in between the bricks, and I love the look of it - it says old, it says weathered, it says English garden (whether that part is true I don't know but again, I'm a romantic lol). But I also know it's not safe, especially in the rain. But luckily the traffic patterns seem to keep clear of moss - I guess precisely because it IS the traffic pattern!

I had a customer who used brick as edging. She stood the bricks upright on a diagonal and edged her beds that way. I don't think I've ever seen brick walls in a garden around here. Perhaps some rose or vine growing up a chimney, but no freestanding brick walls in a garden...

erasmus, to your point about houses here being "old" if they were built in the 1800's - as a teenager (let's just say a couple of decades ago lol) I went to Phoenix for a summer. My new friends there could not believe my school was built in 1927. They thought that was ancient, because the state of Arizona is so much newer than CT, which I thought was funny because we had MUCH older buildings, like from the 1700's lol. A building from 1927 was relatively new! And the flip side of that - when I visited Italy, I was amazed - and happily so - that people were still living in and doing business in buildings that were 500 years old and older! Adapted to modern use, but still old - some even built on the foundations of Roman buildings! Made me realize that our rather rare houses from the 1700's weren't all that old after all. Also made me a bit sad to think that if Americans lived there that would all be torn down to make way for "progress".

:)

Dee

My old house was a solid load-bearing masonry brick home, built 1906ish. The owner before me was in the construction business and had contracts with the city. Any time he had to tear up a portion of (brick paver) road and pave it, he'd bring the bricks home and built a patio with them in the back yard. When I purchased the house it was all covered in grassy weeds and you couldn't tell there was brick there at all. I slowly dug them up, built raised beds along the edge of the property (filled with roses, irises, and peonies), and laid a path with them through the side yard.

My current home is also brick, but it's a wood-frame home with brick veneer as most modern construction is. I do find chunks of brick buried in the yard and have no idea what to do with any of them. I just toss them in a bucket with the other small stones I find.

I like the looks of bricks with things growing between them. I think there is a good percentage of Americans who value historical buildings. In some places if you buy historic homes you have to restore them in accordance with what the house originally looked like.

I don't understand how the buildings in Venice, Italy last so long around all that water.

@erasmus_gw You bring up a good reminder & a point that rosaprimula might be interested in. That is, the National Registry of Historic Places that was created in 1966 to preserve the architecture & integrity of America’s history. There also exists National Register Districts for preservation of historic homes. So, your point about ”…good percentage of Americans who value historical buildings.” is well taken. I think America might be generally late to the party of saving our building history but we are a young country and are learning!

I grew up with so much brick around me the OP question struck me as sort of funny at first. My first thought was well yes, even the streets were made of it. Heavy and large red ones. A few of them are still brick in preserved areas of my home town. Cream City brick and other brick homes all over. J. Wax buildings and FLW works. Chicago is mostly brick and stone. But then, where I grew up there were the years of the conflagrations in the late 1800's. A lot of wood building got replaced with stone and brick when things were rebuilt. There were a bunch of brickyards in the region between the mid 1800's to mid 1900's churning it out. Most of them are gone or absorbed now.

Earthquakes and un-reinforced brick walls don't mix at all well. Take a look at some of the post-tornado news footage now getting a lot of publicity. So brick nowadays is used more sparingly than it once was.

Jay, the plant with the Cymbalaria is Wall Pennywort, Umbilicus rupestris. Fairly common in my area on damp walls.

Our house was built in 1960 and it is solid(?) real (?) masonry brick in an English bond. An addition was added later, not sure when-we have only been here 28 years-that is brick veneer. It seems everything in the U.S is veneer these days. Stone, brick, whatever. Such a shame and coming from Pennsylvania with its marvelous old stone homes in which the walls are at least a foot thick and often thicker, I lament the loss of the real thing, but the cost is prohibitive now, I guess.

Do you like painted brick? I do. I like natural unpainted and painted brick. I wouldn't paint my brick house because eventually it would have to be repainted. But I have seen many painted brick homes around here that look fantastic. They're usually white or cream.

Nearby there's a huge old brick factory building about a city block long. It used to be cream color but last year they painted it stark white with black trim around the many windows. It looks great. Most of the buildings downtown ( I can walk to downtown) are brick, the middle school is brick and they just built a two or three story huge addition to it in brick. The Post Office is brick. The police station is rock mortared together. There are a fair amount of rock houses around here.

Where I live, bricks are used, but are non structural. Just cladding. They build office buildings with bricks with a weathered appearance. They bricks are new, but they look 100 years old. And then they add modern black shiny windows. So the building looks part new, part 100 years old. The houses have brick fronts and the other 3 sides are siding. Looks good when looking front on, but at an angle, it looks bad. All siding looks better IMO.