Chesapeake Bay homes are generally considered to be Colonial style, however on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the towns and cities feature a surprisingly large number of “Victorian” houses, ranging from the plain pre Civil War styles to large complex and showy residences.

What, exactly, is a Victorian? Many of us use the term to describe an architectural style, however, Victorian is not really a style but a period in history. The Victorian era dates from about 1840 to 1900. The economic opportunities of the industrial age created a newly rising middle class, which would change the face of the country forever. They lived comfortable lives and as the wealth of the nation increased many were able to enjoy the pleasures of the good life in beautiful homes. During this time, industrialization brought many innovations in architecture, resulting in a variety of Victorian styles, each with its own distinctive features.

Early Victorian structures were relatively simple in style, while those built after the Civil War became more complicated. These include Italianate, Second Empire, Stick-Eastlake,  Gothic Revival, and Queen Anne. Generally, Italianate style structures have flat roof lines, corniced eaves, angled bay windows and Corinthian-columned porches. Stick-Eastlake structures often include square bays, flat roof lines and free-style decorations. Victorian Gothic buildings featured arches, pointed windows, and other details borrowed from the middle ages. Queen Anne’s have a gabled roof, shingled insets, angled bay windows under the gable and usually a tower.

The homes were planned from the inside out – the layout of the rooms, the distinctive purpose of each room and the traffic pattern determined the outward look. Builders often borrowed characteristics from several different styles, creating unique, and sometimes quirky, mixes. The Victorians drew deeply from history, nature, geometry, theory, and personal inspiration to create their designs.

One quality of Victorian homes is a great deal of ornamentation and elaborate exterior features, with each style using its own form. Another Victorian quality is the abundance of extensions such as wraparound porches with extensive carvings, expansive bay windows and later, they added towers and turrets.

Early Victorian homes were painted in middle earth tones, browns, dark red, dark grey, while later  Victorian homes are colorful, elaborate, and bold. Queen Anne houses were coated in bright colors of yellow, rose or pink, light blues and above all contrasting trim colors designed  to emphasize the ornate construction details.

The next time you are looking at Chesapeake Bay properties take a closer look at the Victorian age houses. The best examples of Victorian homes will be in the Eastern Shore towns of Easton, Cambridge, Chestertown, Oxford and Saint Michaels. In our next post we will emphasize the different styles.

Home  House  Abode  Dwelling  Shelter  Residence  Domicile

In our last post, we discussed condominiums, as a form of ownership, not a building style, which left unanswered the question of what are the common forms of residences and what do they look like. Chesapeake Bay homes come in several distinct types that are categorized as follows:

Let’s start with the most popular, the single family home, a detached dwelling on any size lot or acreage. 

The second category is multiple or connected dwellings, generally connected on one or both sides resulting in a duplex, triplex or quadruplex building.

Villa – A one-story unit, it may have a partial story or loft up.
Townhouse – Two to three full stories, the ground level usually contains a garage with an additional room.
Patio Home – A hybrid combination of connected villa style houses, with a deeded obligation to pay for outside maintenance, that is provided by the developer or a community organization.

The remaining category covers buildings containing “apartment”* style living units on one or more levels.

Garden Style –  A two or three story rectangular building with individual living spaces on one level.  Garden style units generally include a substantial amount of open landscaped ground.
Mid Rise** – A four to eight story building with individual dwelling units on one level. New midrise buildings often   reserve the top stories for multi level penthouses.

High Rise** – Any building between 8 and 40 stories is considered a high rise.  Buildings taller than 40 levels are classified as Skyscrapers. 

*The word apartment is another confusing name like condominium. The original apartments, dating back to the 16th century were called flats, a separate unit of a suite of rooms in a communal residential building. Later on in the middle 1800’s, this living style became popular in high-density areas of Europe and Great Britain. From the very beginning, the flat was owned along with shared rights of the common areas. Later on, renting and leasing became popular and nowadays, we associate apartments with rental use, rather than ownership.  In summary, the word apartment relates to common or shared living in a singular building.

**These are generally accepted definitions used to describe Chesapeake Bay properties; however, architects, urban planners and city building authorities all have their own formulas or guidelines to categorize the structures. For instance, mid rise building sizes may be subject to ratios of the street width to the building height. The difference between a high rise and a skyscraper is determined by the influence of winds and evacuation time during a fire.

While searching for Chesapeake Bay real estate for our customers, we frequently hear the words “but we don’t want a condo.” Condo, is probably the most misused word in the real estate dictionary and most home buyers do not understand its true meaning, probably because amost of us found it a convenient way to catagorize an apartment style home that is owned instead of leased.

A condominium, or “condo,” is strictly a form ownership. Years ago, ski and other vacation resort developers constructed multiple dwelling units for purchase, and they devised the condominium concept to establish a means of managing and operating them independently, after completion. From the very beginning, this concept was misunderstood and the word condo came to mean any multiple unit residence, further reinforced later on, when condominiums were constructed as apartment style buildings in urban areas.

In summary, a condominium may be a detached house, townhouse or villa, a high rise or low rise building, an office suite, a retail store, commercial space or even a boat dock (dockominium). The next time you want to find a Chesapeake Bay property, be sure and ask your real estate agent to inform you of any ownership regulations if the property is a condominium.