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Downtown Dayton Walking Tour
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Dutch Colonial is a style of domestic architecture, primarily characterized by gambrel roofs having curved eaves along the length of the house. Modern versions built in the early 20th century are more accurately referred to as "Dutch Colonial Revival", a subtype of the Colonial Revival style.

Remnants of colonial Dutch influence, such as the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow from 1697, became the basis of revivalist styling.

The modern use of the term is to indicate a broad gambrel roof with flaring eaves that extend over the long sides, resembling a barn in construction.[1] The early houses built by settlers were often a single room, with additions added to either end (or short side) and very often a porch along both long sides. Typically, walls were made of stone and a chimney was located on one or both ends. Common were double-hung sash windows with outward swinging wood shutters and a central double Dutch door.

Settlers of the Dutch colonies in New York, Delaware, New Jersey, and western Connecticut built these homes in ways familiar to the regions of Europe from which they came, like the Low Countries, the Palatine parts of Germany, and Huguenot regions of France.[2] Used for its modern meaning of "gambrel-roofed house", the term does not reflect the fact that housing styles in Dutch-founded communities in New York evolved over time. In the Hudson Valley, for example, the use of brick, or brick and stone is perhaps more characteristic of Dutch Colonial houses than is their use of a gambrel roof. In Albany and Ulster Counties, frame houses were almost unknown before 1776, while in Dutchess and Westchester Counties, the presence of a greater proportion of settlers with English roots popularised more construction of wood-frame houses.[3]: 22  After a period of log cabin and bank-dugout construction, the use of the inverted "V" roof shape was common. The gambrel roof was used later, predominantly between 1725 and 1775, although examples can be found from as early as 1705.[3]: 23  The general rule before 1776 was to build houses that were only one-and-a-half stories high, except in Albany, where there were a greater proportion of two-story houses. Fine examples of these houses can be found today, like those in the Huguenot Street Historic District of New Paltz, New York.


This fire station was built in Dutch Colonial Revival style with Craftsman influences. The fire station, like the Pump House that you saw at the beginning of your tour, demonstrates the importance placed on creating quality architecture in Dayton View during the first decades after the turn of the century. Great attention was paid to the detailed design of even utilitarian buildings and well as homes. Engine Company 9 was designed by Thies and Thies Architects during the administration of Henry Waite, Dayton's first City Manager. It so completely resembles a house that one hardly notices its real function, exactly what the architects intended.

The building style is Dutch Colonial Revival names for its pre-Revolutionary war Dutch prototypes. However, the gambrel roof is the building’s only design feature that it has in common with its Dutch Colonial predecessors. Even it has been modified with a much steeper pitch and shed roof dormers to accommodate a second story. Engine Company 9 also displays an unusual combination of Classical and Craftsman style influences. These are evident in the design of its front and rear entrance porches.

These porches are designed as the pergolas which are open wooden-framed garden structures. Pergolas became almost synonymous with Craftsman style houses. They were considered one of those honest expressions of structural materials so important to the Arts and Crafts movement. Here pergola roofs sit on top of modest Doric columns. The space between the columns is latticed, also reminding one of the original garden functions of pergola structures.

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