A Shingle is a small thin piece of building material often with one end thicker than the other for laying in overlapping rows as a covering for the roof or sides of a building.

The Shingle style (1880-1900) is an American architectural style which was made famous by the rise of the New England school of architecture, which rejected the highly ornamented patterns of the Eastlake style in Queen Anne architecture.

In the Shingle style, there is a combination of English influence with the renewed interest in Colonial American architecture which followed the 1876 celebration of the Centennial. The plain, shingled surfaces of colonial buildings were adopted, and their massing emulated.

Aside from being a style of design, the Shingle house style also conveyed a sense of the house as continuous volume. This effect—of the building as an envelope of space, rather than a great mass, was enhanced by the visual tautness of the flat shingled surfaces, the horizontal shape of many Shingle-style houses, and the emphasis on horizontal continuity, both in exterior details and in the flow of spaces within the houses.

The houses were often built on stone foundations that seem to emerge from bedrock. The Shingle style was developed in New England and the style was most popular in seaside resorts.

Although indisputably of American origin, the Shingle style borrowed liberally from other Victorian styles. Its porches, shingles, and asymmetrical forms, for example, were from Queen Anne. Palladian window, gambrel roofs, and complexity of the forms and stone are often attributed to the Richardsonian Romanesque style popular at the same time.

Characteristics of Shingle House

Shingle houses are marked with the presence of shingles on the roof and wall surfaces. First floor walls are sometimes designed with shingles, bricks or stones. Most shingles are covered with gable ends with curving towers and porch columns.

Most shingle house styles have monochrome appearances because of the natural unpainted shingles covering the exterior surfaces. The most identifying thing about the shingle house style is the Queen Anne Style look with the lacking of its decorative look. The shingle roof style are mostly decorated with sweeping multi gables. The windows are most of the time small in design, multi-paned and grouped in pairs and triples.

Top Features of the Shingle House Style

• Asymmetrical facade.
• Randomized or Irregular roof lines.
• Shingled walls and roof.
• Cross gables.
• Large Porches.
• Small sash or casement windows with multiple panes.
• Round and polygonal shingle towers