bank house

German Colonial architecture

Architecture attributed to German-speaking immigrants to America primarily in the years from about 1680 to 1780. Many of these early settlers first built a log house of hewn square timbers as a temporary home until they could construct more substantial housing. Common characteristics of their permanent houses included: a symmetrical façade, thick stone walls, a steeply pitched end-gabled roof usually covered with wood shingles or clay tiles; an attic story with windows at the gable ends and shed dormers on the roof, a porch at the gable end of the house or at the front of the house; small casement windows with battened shutters, later replaced by double-hung windows. If it was built into a hillside, it was called a bank house. Also see fachwerk, grundscheier, Pennsylvania Dutch, rauchkammer, springhouse.