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Madison Co. Virginia | Here, the name I've heard used is "two-on-two." This is not in relation to the windows, but to the rooms. Each floor has a room on either side of a central hall and stairs. These "two rooms" over "two rooms" gives it the name. Some wealthier larger houses will be the same, but are two rooms deep, making them a "four-on-four."
There's an older(1848) solid brick house on an extended family farm that looks very similar in type and dimensions to your first pic. It has a livable english basement, which adds a much higher stance to the house. This house is of the five window type, to use your terminology.
The classic Virginia farmhouses like in the pic I posted, were built between 1880 and 1920. It's interesting to note what kind of houses had become standardized in different parts of the country at that point. Houses built in this period still could not depend on the luxury of electric for lighting, heating, ventilation, and cooling. I would consider these 1920's houses to be the epitome of centuries of "research" into what was the ideal house for the locality. For example, the southern states built houses characterized by wide verandas and deep roof overhangs to give summer sun protection. Up north, the two story foursquare was more common, because it was a more efficient shape to heat(lower surface area to volume ratio). Here, folks settled on the three window "two-on-two" style as the most efficient compromise between summer ventilation and winter heating. By the 1950's, modern electric and conveniences had mostly rendered all local construction styles obsolete, and everyone was just throwing down single story ranch houses. In a mid-summer power outage, those ranch houses would be overheated and dark when compared to a more classic designed structure. While I recognize the practical limitations of the older styles, I applaud anyone who tries to bring the historically local design elements into their new construction. | |
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Question for those who have remodeled or added additions to old farmhouses.
