A Field Guide to American Houses is the most comprehensive and widely acclaimed guide to domestic architecture—in print since 1984—and acknowledged everywhere as the unmatched, essential reference to American houses.

Focusing on dwellings in urban and suburban neighborhoods and rural locations all across the continental United States—houses built over the past three hundred years reflecting every social and economic background—this guide provides in-depth information on the essentials of domestic architecture with facts and frames of reference that will enable you to look in a fresh way at the houses around you. With more than 1,600 detailed photographs and line illustrations, and a lucid, vastly informative text, it will teach you not only to recognize distinct architectural styles but also to understand their historical significance. What does that cornice signify? Or that porch? The shape of that door? The window treatment? When was this house built? What does the style say about its builders and their eras? You'll find the answers to these and myriad other questions in this encyclopedic and eminently practical book.

The book elucidates more than fifty styles and their variants, spanning seven distinct historical periods. Each style is illustrated with a large schematic drawing that highlights its most important identifying features. Additional drawings and photographs provide, at a glance, common alternative shapes, principal subtypes, and close-up views of typical small details—windows, doors, cornices, etc.—that can be difficult to see in full-house illustrations. The accompanying text explains the identifying features of each style, describing where and in what quantity they can be found, discussing all of its notable variants, and tracing their origin and history.

The book's introductory chapters provide invaluable general discussions of construction materials and techniques, house shapes, and the various traditions of architectural fashion that have influenced American house design through the past three centuries. A pictorial key and glossary simplifies identification, connecting easily recognized architectural features—the presence of a tile roof, for example—to the styles in which that feature is likely to be found.

The revised 2013 edition includes chapters on styles that have emerged in the thirty years since the original 1984 edition; a groundbreaking chapter on the development and evolution of American neighborhoods; an appendix on approaches to construction in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; an expanded bibliography; and 600 new photographs and line drawings throughout.

A Field Guide to American Houses is an indispensable resource—both easy and pleasurable to use—for the house lover and the curious tourist, for the house buyer and the weekend stroller, for neighborhood preservation groups, architecture buffs, and everyone who wants to know more about their own homes and communities. It is an invaluable book of American architecture, culture, and history.

"A near miracle of clarity....Here is a book that will be a landmark in its own right." –Wall Street Journal

"Complete and fascinating....A splendid compendium." –New York Times

"[The authors] have produced a splendid compendium. Although they concentrate primarily on single-family dwellings...the number of design variations listed is formidable. They have painstakingly dissected such styles as Colonial, Folk, Eclectic and Modern into subcategories and variants....The many photographs, however, provide the real charm of the book. Here are the ordinary houses of America's suburbs and the surviving gems of decaying city neighborhoods. Here are the Midwestern Prairie-style houses, the Western adobes, the Eastern Victorians and the Colonial Revival houses of Texas." –Dona Guimaraes, The New York Times Book Review

"A treasure trove of information." –Washington Post

"The best guide you'll ever find to American houses." –Denver Post