Layman House

The American Foursquare or American Four Square (American 4 Square) is an American house style popular from the mid-1890s to the late 1930s. A reaction to the ornate and mass-produced elements of the Victorian and other Revival styles popular throughout the last half of the 19th century, the American Foursquare was plain, often incorporating handcrafted "honest" woodwork (unless purchased from a mail-order catalog). This style incorporates elements of the Prairie School and the Craftsman styles. It is also sometimes called Transitional Period.

The hallmarks of the style include a basically square, boxy design, two-and-one-half stories high, usually with four large, boxy rooms to a floor (with the exception of the attic floor, which typically has only one or two rooms), a center dormer, and a large front porch with wide stairs. The boxy shape provides a maximum amount of interior room space, to use a small city lot to best advantage. Other common features included a hipped roof, arched entries between common rooms, built-in cabinetry, and Craftsman-style woodwork.

A typical design would be as follows: first floor, from front to back, on one side, the living room and dining room; while on the other side, the entry room or foyer, stairway and kitchen. Sometimes a bathroom was also included. Second floor, front to back, on one side, bedroom, bathroom and bedroom; while on the other side, bedroom, stairway and bedroom. The upstairs bathroom would generally be placed above the kitchen, so that the plumbing could run directly from one to the other. The bedrooms had a slightly longer dimension along the front and back of the house with side-by-side closets between the bedrooms. This gave a very efficient layout, with a bedroom in each corner and a centralized bathroom and stairway. The top floor was generally just a big open space with one to four dormers, essentially an attic, whether finished into living space or not. The basement generally contained a large natural convection furnace or boiler, exhausting to a chimney running upwards through the center of the house, which also provided exhaust for the stove.

This American Foursquare was built in

1909 by W.S. Layman and purchased by M.J. Gibbons in 1917. Foursquare homes are one of very few house types that can be called essentially American. This style was dubbed the “American Foursquare” by Clem Labine, former editor of Old House Journal. The Foursquare style is also sometimes called the box or the double cube for its boxy outline and interior plan of four nearly equal size rooms per floor. This architectural style was marketed and advertised for its "Americanness." The foursquare house proved to be so popular that thousands were built in American's Post-Victorian suburbs and in the countryside as well.

The Layman-Gibbons house is an excellent example of the foursquare house. It is two stories high and constructed of striking highly-glazed, golden brick. The house is set on a raised basement with a limestone water table. The house is approached by steps which lead to a porch which runs the full width of the first floor. Another defining feature of the foursquare style is the pyramidal roof with dormers. The roof is covered with slate and the handsome three light dormers match the roofline. Note the decorative cresting, a holdover from the Victorian era, along the roof and dormer ridges. Another excellent example of the American Foursquare house is the Cassel house. This house was built by prominent physician William H. Cassel in 1907 and is located at 57 Oxford Avenue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Foursquare