Victorian Gothic House Styles: History and Pictures

By Jackie Craven, About.com Guide

In the United States, the Gothic Revival styles were seen as most suitable for rural areas. Architects of the day believed that the stately ecclesiastical homes and austere Gothic Revival farmhouses should be set in a natural landscape of rolling green lawns and profuse foliage.

However, smaller and more ornate Gothic Revival homes were often built in populated areas. A few religious revival groups in the American Northeast built densely clustered groupings cottages with lavish gingerbread trim. Religious camps in Round Lake, New York and on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts became miniature villages in the Carpenter Gothic style.

Meanwhile, builders in towns and urban areas began to apply the fashionable Gothic details to traditional homes that were not, strictly speaking, Gothic at all. Possibly the most lavish example of a Gothic pretender is the Wedding Cake House in Kenneport, Maine.

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