June 6, 2008
From a Shelter to a Penthouse
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.
ion 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.
use 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.
Palladianism, a philosophy of design based on the writings and work of Andreas Palladio, an Italian architect of the 16th century who tried to recreate the style and proportions of the buildings of ancient Rome. Georgian homes are refined and symmetrical with paired chimneys and a decorative crown over the front door. Doors and windows were aligned vertically and horizontally in strict symmetry and never paned. Most feature an orderly row of five windows across the second story. The front doors were usually paneled and surrounded by twin columns and capped with a decorative crown and glass transom. Later versions added dormers and decorative features. 
r near the major American seaports. Look for a more stylistic design, often with attached wings of dependencies, that were curved or polygonal projections two or more rooms deep. Federal homes sport symmetrical facades with central entranceways and foyers. Sitting rooms and bedrooms lead off from these halls. An equal number of windows flank each side of the door and the windows tend to have small panes, owing to the difficulty of making large glass sheets at the time. The windows are usually equipped with shutters. Federal roofs, sometimes shielded behind balustrades, are either hipped (sloped on all four sides) or central or side gabled (straight slope from ridge to eave). Facades are fairly smooth, only broken up by small porches. Cornices usually sport decorations, often tooth-like shapes called dentils. Notable features changes were fan lights over the door, more elaborate details around the doors and windows and Palladian windows.
notable feature was a large entry (portico) dominating the façade, usually an elaborate porch supported with columns. Early Classical Revival houses usually had one story wings on each side, in the style of the Italian Renaissance Palladium concept (three part plan).