Double Verandah House

The Double Verandah House.
This house type is the local development of the Anglo-American townhouse, which has previously been discussed. The double verandah house takes that house form and applies a major exterior element, the two story columned verandah. This design element served both a practical and an aesthetic purpose. It served to provide shade from the sun and protection from the rain, and it greatly added to the pretensions of the house through increasing its external ornamentation. These houses are most often found in areas which developed as suburban expansions of the city's early plans: the Lower Garden District, Garden District, and the Esplanade Ridge District. Many of these houses were constructed on large lots and featured projecting side bays. Significantly, this house type was also used for rental housing construction, with a number of double houses of some size being built using this formula.

External Features and Characteristics.
By virtue of their covered exterior verandahs, these houses were always set back from the front property line of their lot, so as to provide some privacy from the street. In some cases, this setback could be substantial, depending upon the depth of the lot involved. Many double verandah houses face onto generous side yards, while those examples built as double residences are often set on lots that allow only enough room for a narrow side alley between houses.

The dominant building material for double verandah houses is wood frame construction, although there are a number of excellent examples built of brick, with these specimens being much more expensive and finely finished than most of their frame counterparts. As the name implies, the dominant feature of these houses is the double verandah that projects from the front wall of the house, producing a sort of miniature temple front. The design of the verandahs can vary from example to example. The most common forms use two sets of columns, one on the first floor and one on the second floor to support and frame the verandah. These columns can be simple square box columns, or they can be round, fluted columns with formal Greek or Roman column capitals. If the more formal column treatment is used, the less ornate columns are set on the first floor, with the more ornate columns on the upper floor. A less common treatment involves the use of a single, colossal column shaft that runs from the first floor through the second floor to the building's entablature. The classical appearance of these houses is completed by the rather heavy entablature that rests on top of the second floor columns, concealing the low, hipped roof from view.

The facades of these houses can vary in terms of their width, with the standard single house being three bays wide, and double houses being four bays wide. The front wall surfaces are generally finished with some sort of decorative wood siding as opposed to the standard weatherboards that are used on the rest of the exterior surfaces of the structure. The front door frames are prominently detailed using either Greek Revival or Italianate style ornament. The windows on the facade are generally full length, to allow access from the interior onto the verandahs. These window openings were generally fitted with louvered shutters. The verandah railings were most often made of multiple cast-iron balusters, although some simple wood balusters survive on the less expensively finished specimens of this house type. The installation of verandah railings on the first floor level seems to have been left to the choice of the owner, but they were always installed on the second floor for obvious safety reasons.