Queen Anne Houses

English-derived and very popular from 1880 through the 1890s, this quintessential Victorian house is a period favorite. Robust but lighthearted exteriors, with their asymmetrical facades, towers, verandahs, and fancy-butt shingles, hint at the sweetly eclectic rooms inside.

It’s the most beloved of Victorian styles. Despite roots in the English “Queen Anne Movement”--a return to early, vernacular architecture--it is here a peculiarly American style in its mass-produced ornamentation (including “gingerbread”) and lavish use of wood.

Queen Anne Houses

This cira-1900 Queen Anne house in Portland boasts a wide veranda, a tower, pocket doors and an abundance of original detailing. Take a look at how this couple restored this historic home using art wallpapers, vintage textiles, antique lighting fixtures and a variety of period-appropriate antique decor.

By Brian D. Coleman

Queen Anne Houses

The Queen Anne, a favorite of American house styles, features exterior ornament and complex color schemes.

Exterior Paints & Finishes

Help for one of the biggest decisions homeowners have to make: choosing paint colors for the outside of your house.

Remuddling

"The house is a money-maker. I get it. A few fixes and she could shine again." - Tina Kaasman

Garden Design

How an avid gardener and her landscape designers reworked a streetside urban plot to create private “rooms” along with lawns and perennial beds—while honoring the scale of the big old house.

Spandrels are just one of many exuberant details on this 1882 Queen Anne.

Queen Anne Houses

A long journey took this restoration-committed owner deep into research—and on a hunt for antiques.

Homeowner Margaret Gerteis chose the house’s polychrome color scheme in 1998 with the help of Frankie Lieberman, an old-house enthusiast and contractor.

Queen Anne Houses

See the restoration of a Victorian house in Massachusetts.

Theresa and Jim Barnatt love to spend evenings on their rebuilt front porch, sitting in the rocking chairs and sipping a glass of wine while watching the sun set over Lake Charles.

Queen Anne Houses

Follow the restoration a Victorian home.

The dining room houses an Eastlake sideboard, which became the inspiration for the new kitchen cabinets.

Queen Anne Houses

See how one Chicago Queen Anne got a fresh look.

With heavy Colonial Revival influences, the 8,000-square-foot Queen Anne house is a landmark in the small community.

Queen Anne Houses

See the restoration of the historic Eitzen Mansion in California, Missouri.

Millwork framing the 8'-tall pocket door (left) leading to the dining room is new, custom-cut to match surviving samples, but blends seamlessly with the antique door.

Queen Anne Houses

An 1899 Queen Anne house in Portland, Oregon, is restored after a fire.

A view from the back parlor hints at the collection of Victorian antiques. A lamp on the center table below is connected, in the Victorian fashion, to the gasolier above by a rubber hose.

Queen Anne Houses

The gaslights are still gaslit in this 1891 Queen Anne tower house in Washington, D.C.

Aesthetic colors in one parlor set off tiles in a Modern Gothic style. Photo: Corey Fitzpatrick

Interiors & Decor

An untouched 1883 interior in Massachusetts offers up an encyclopedia of Aesthetic Movement ornament, much of it in the Anglo-Japanese or Orientalist taste.

The Swan-Levine house (a former hospital) in all its restored glory.

Queen Anne Houses

A California couple enlisted their creative zeal—and a few of their friends—to doctor a decommissioned hospital.

The entry is done in full Victorian finery; Jim had to buy back the stained-glass panel in the front door.

Queen Anne Houses

See the restoration of an opulent Queen Anne in Berwick, Pennsylvania.

"The only thing you really see from the street is the jut out of the den," Decker says. "We tried to not take away from the prominence of the old house."

Queen Anne Houses

Can abandoned houses be saved?

Decorative shingles and Stick-style detailing also warm up the home’s appearance, and better match the neighborhood’s high-style homes.

Queen Anne Houses

See how one Queen Anne duplex gets overhauled.

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