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American Foursquare House was fashionable from the mid-1890s to the late 1930s. The American Foursquare house was plain, often integrated with handcrafted "honest" woodwork. This style includes elements of the Prairie School and the Craftsman styles. It is also sometimes called Transitional Pyramid.
The hallmarks American four square house include a basically square, boxy design, two-and-one-half stories high, usually with four large, boxy rooms to a floor, 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. The basement generally contained a large natural convection furnace
Foursquare Houses were built with a variety of materials such as bricks and wood frames. Later architects included built-in shelves and other facilities. Large tracts of these homes exist in older urban areas.
The American Foursquare style is occasionally rejuvenated in new developments, although its appeal is as a "traditional looking" style rather than a fully genuine one, often including modern 2-car attached garages and other features absent in originals, and normally built on larger lots.
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