A Daily Blog about Preservation and Historic Houses
Mansard Monday ~ Fabulous Second Empire House
A fabulous Second Empire house with matching carriage house in Dexter, Maine. This Second Empire style house has a lot of presence for a relatively small house. The defining feature of a Second Empire style building is the Mansard roof, named for 17th-century French Baroque architect François Mansart. It was first used for an addition…
Keep readingRestoring Your Historic House, The Comprehensive Guide for Homeowners describes and illustrates a best-practices approach for updating historic homes for modern life in ways that do not attempt to turn an old house into a new one. With interior and exterior photography by David Clough, these multi-page features show what can be achieved when a historic home is renovated with a desire to preserve as much historic character as possible.
Scott T. Hanson is a historic-building preservation professional and has 40 years’ experience rehabilitating historic houses. He has illustrated this authoritative book with hundreds of step-by-step photos, illustrations, charts, and decision-making guides. Interspersed throughout are photo essays of 13 restored historic houses representing a range of periods and architectural styles: Italianate, Victorian, Queen Anne, Federal, Colonial, Colonial Revival, Greek Revival, Ranch, Adobe, Craftsman, Shingle, and Rustic.