Excellent 4.7/5.0 • 386+ Reviews
A Field Guide to American Houses (Revised)
50+ Architectural Styles · 7 Historical Periods · Photos & Drawings
- Covers 400 years of American residential architecture
- The 40-year standard endorsed by the New York Times
- Spot any style from a single visible feature
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Consistently ordered by architects, preservationists, real estate professionals, and house lovers across North America. Order now to secure yours.
Satisfaction Guarantee
If this isn't the most useful and captivating book about American houses you've ever owned, contact us and we'll make it right.
Gracia R.
I sleep with it sometimes. For any architect concerned with style and consistency, this book makes the nuanced task of identifying and learning American design styles much easier. There is no book that is more essential.
INSIDE THE BOOK
880 Pages. 50+ Styles. 400 Years of American Architecture. Every Detail Explained.
The revised edition covers more than fifty distinct architectural styles and their variants, spanning seven historical periods from the earliest Colonial settlements to Millennium Mansions built in the 2000s. Every style gets a complete chapter.
Each chapter opens with a large schematic drawing that labels every identifying feature. Additional photographs and drawings show common variants and close-up views of the details that actually distinguish one style from another — windows, doors, cornices, rooflines, porches.
The pictorial key at the front works like a visual index: spot a feature — a tile roof, an eyebrow dormer, a decorative gable — and it directs you straight to the styles that have it. You don't need to know what you're looking for. You just need to see it.
Pictorial key that identifies styles from individual features
New groundbreaking chapter on American neighborhood development
Appendix on 20th and 21st century construction approaches
FOLK HOUSES
All periods
Native American · Pre-Railroad · National · Manufactured
COLONIAL HOUSES
1600–1820
Georgian · Federal · Dutch Colonial · Spanish Colonial · French Colonial
ROMANTIC HOUSES
1820–1880
Greek Revival · Gothic Revival · Italianate · Octagon
VICTORIAN HOUSES
1860–1900
Queen Anne · Shingle · Stick · Second Empire · Richardsonian Romanesque
ECLECTIC HOUSES
1880–1940
Tudor · Craftsman · Colonial Revival · Beaux Arts · Spanish Revival · Pueblo Revival
MODERN HOUSES
1900–present
Prairie · Craftsman · Mid-Century · Split Level · Ranch
CONTEMPORARY
1970–present
Millennium Mansions · New Traditional · American Vernacular
THIS BOOK IS FOR
Anyone Who Has Ever Looked at a House and Wanted to Know More.
The Homeowner
You live in a Craftsman bungalow, a Colonial Revival, a Queen Anne, a mid-century ranch. You pass the details every day. This is the book that tells you exactly what you have, what makes it what it is, and what decisions fit the house's architectural language — and which ones fight against it.
The House Hunter
You're touring homes. Listings say 'Victorian,' 'Tudor,' 'Colonial.' This book gives you the vocabulary to understand what you're actually seeing — and the historical context to make smarter, more intentional decisions about what you're buying.
The Neighborhood Walker
You've always noticed the houses on your walks but never had words for them. After this book, every walk in every city becomes a self-guided architectural tour. You start seeing 400 years of American history written in the houses on every block.
The Thoughtful Gift Buyer
For the person obsessed with old houses, architecture history, or historic preservation. For the realtor who wants to speak with more authority. For the architect who needs the foundational reference on their shelf. The New York Times called it magisterial. That's the word.
WHAT THE WORLD SAID
NEW YORK TIMES
Magisterial... The illustrated story of why our houses — great and humble and everything in between — look the way they do.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
You'll be able to identify the saltboxes, Dutch colonials, and brownstones lining your own street, and you'll understand the historical significance of each one.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Chronicles the past 400 years of American styles, from wigwam to mobile to modern.
HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
A classic.
DENVER POST
For lovers of historic homes, this is a rich trove of not just details, but reasons for them.
OLD HOUSE JOURNAL
This is one of those special books which really is for everyone — whether you're a preservationist, historian, or someone who just loves to take weekend strolls and admire old houses.
QUESTIONS
Before You Get the Field Guide
Straight answers.
Do I need to be an architect or historian to use this book?
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Absolutely not. The Field Guide was specifically written for the general reader — the curious layperson, the homeowner, the house hunter, the weekend stroller. Every style chapter opens with a straightforward visual identification system that works even if you've never thought about architecture before. The New York Times Magazine called it excellent for 'the layperson who wants to wander about the neighborhood with a bit more authority.' The Old House Journal said it 'really is for everyone.' Those are not marketing lines — they're accurate descriptions of what the book actually does.
Is this something I'd read cover to cover or use as a reference?
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Both, depending on who you are. Most people start with the styles that apply to their neighborhood or home, use the pictorial key to identify styles they're seeing on walks, and then find themselves reading further because the architectural history is genuinely fascinating. A Field Guide is explicitly structured as a field guide — dip in and out as you need it. But plenty of readers report reading it straight through, because once you start, the history of how and why American houses look the way they do is compulsively interesting.
How current is the revised edition?
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The revised edition, published in 2013–2015, added 600 new photographs and line drawings and expanded coverage to include styles that emerged in the thirty years since the original 1984 publication. This includes new chapters on Millennium Mansions and McMansions, New Traditional homes, a groundbreaking chapter on the development and evolution of American neighborhoods, and an appendix on 20th and 21st century construction approaches. It is as comprehensive and current as any guide to American domestic architecture exists.
Is this only useful if I live in an older neighborhood?
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No — though it's particularly rich if you do. The book covers the full spectrum of American residential architecture including mid-century modern, ranch homes, split levels, contemporary construction, and the neighborhood patterns that shape both old and new areas. Even in newer suburbs, understanding what the developers were referencing or reacting to — Colonial Revival detailing on a 1990s house, for example — gives you a completely different lens on the built environment around you.
Is this a good gift?
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It's one of the best architecture gifts that exists. 880 pages, published by Knopf, endorsed by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Elle Décor, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It looks authoritative on a shelf and rewards every hour spent with it. For the person who loves old houses, historic neighborhoods, real estate, architecture, or American history — this is the book. Most people who receive it say it's the book they didn't know they needed.
IN PRINT SINCE 1984 FOR A REASON
You've Always Noticed the Houses. Now You'll Finally Understand Them.
The book that turns any walk in any American neighborhood into a completely different experience. 880 pages. 50+ styles. 40 years of being the only guide that does this comprehensively.
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