Tudor style homes are some of the most popular homes around today, owing to their flexibility in terms of indoor floor plans, as well as their grandeur when seen from the outside. Historically, Tudors came in large and small sizes, and while the small ones resemble quaint, storybook cottages, it’s the large ones were truly impressive and memorable, and became synonymous with what you think of when you hear “Tudor style home.”
According to Better Homes and Gardens:
“The name of this style suggests a close connection to the architectural characteristics of the early 16th-century Tudor dynasty in England. But the Tudor houses we see today are modern-day re-inventions that are loosely based on a variety of late Medieval English prototypes.
Common features ofTudor-style homes include a steeply pitched roof, prominent cross gables, decorative half-timbering, and tall, narrow windows with small windowpanes.”
Though it is named and fashioned after the gabled homes of the Tudor era in English history, the style itself as we know it today was actually an architectural trend that originated in the United States around 1850, and continued to be immensely popular until after WWII, when they began to see a decline.
The reason for this decline had a lot to do with a shift in the American economy: As the fashion evolved, grander and grander styles of Tudor homes became the norm. Because of all the different materials required to construct these homes, and how decorative they are, they were very expensive to construct. In the 1920s, they were nicknamed “Stockbroker’s Tudors,” after the rich stockbrokers of the Roaring 20s who could afford to construct them.
After the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the war, the new American middle class emerged and grew at an intensely rapid pace. These new middle class families could easily afford styles of home made cheaper by early 20th century advancements in mass production, like the popular colonial style. However, the myriad of materials required for Tudor homes made it so that they were still too expensive for the average American family to afford, so they fell out of fashion.
If you’re enamored by the classic, Medieval, Shakespearean charm of Tudor style homes, buying one is certainly an option for you, especially in our area: Because of our often cold, rainy, snowy climate in the Northeast, these homes are far more common here than they are in other parts of the country. And they’re even more common on the Main Line, given the area’s beginnings as a country escape for many of the wealthier inhabitants of the Philadelphia area around the time that the train line came into use.
If you’re looking to buy a Tudor style home on the Main Line, please reach out to me by email or phone to set up an appointment, or even just to ask questions. Whether you’re a first-time buyer, or looking to move into a newer, bigger place, I’ll be happy to help you get into the house of your dreams in any way that I can. (And if you decide that a Tudor isn’t for you after all, I’ll be happy to help you find a style that does work for you, like a colonial, craftsman, or Ranch style home.)
If you want more expository information on Tudor homes, though, here’s a list of pros and cons of owning one.
