 | PAINTED LADY: The abundance of ornamental details on Queen Anne-style houses provides ample surfaces for decorative painting. |
Gingerbread Houses
Queen Anne-style houses are easily recognized by their heavy ornamentation and wrap-around porches.
QUEEN ANNE HOME TOUR Wilson Block Historic District State-Thomas Historic District Munger Place Historic District Peak’s Suburban Historic District McKinney Waxahachie |
During the Victorian period, Queen Anne-style houses reigned supreme in Texas towns. Laden with gingerbread ornamentation and wrapped in porches, these houses look quaint today, but they were the first truly modern houses. Their lacy decoration was actually produced by the boisterous machines of the Industrial Revolution.
Easily identified by their distinctive high-pitched hipped roofs with lower front and side-facing gables, textured wood shingles, and front porches (that usually wrap around one side of the house), Queen Anne houses are among the most complex in architectural history, ornamenting every surface in sight. Even door hinges were embossed.
But not all have the gingerbread so identified with the style. A great many Queen Annes built after 1893, when the influential Columbian Exposition in Chicago rekindled America’s love affair with classical columns, have columns for porch supports and dentils and other classically inspired details.
The vast majority of the most elaborate Queen Annes in Dallas have been demolished, making way for the downtown skyscrapers, leaving only a few fine survivors in the State-Thomas, Wilson Block, and Peak’s Suburban historic districts. But a number of the small towns near Dallas, so prosperous with cotton during the late 19th century, have many large Queen Anne houses remaining.
