Former homes: a researched style guide for 2027

Every old house is a former version of itself. It was built, then altered, then altered again, and what stands now is a stack of decisions made by people who never met. Reading that stack is one of the most satisfying things you can do in front of a building, and it needs no names, no archive and no permission: the evidence is in the walls.

A note on the title. This site does not publish "the former home of" anybody. A house that once belonged to a named person is still a private house, and describing it is describing where someone lives. What follows is about the former lives of buildings, not of people.

What to take away

• Buildings record their own alterations. Straight joints, blocked openings and changes in material are the primary evidence.
• Work from the core outward: find the oldest part first, then read each addition against it.
• Every period had a habit. Knowing what each era tended to do to an older house tells you what to look for.

The evidence in the fabric

Alterations leave marks because builders match existing work imperfectly. The marks are consistent enough to be read as a language, and the systematic way of walking a building and recording them, at three distances, is set out in Preservation Brief 17 on identifying visual character.

Straight joints. Where a wall was extended, the new masonry meets the old in a vertical line rather than bonding into it. Look at the corners of a house and at any point where the roof line changes. A clean vertical seam running the height of the wall is the boundary between two campaigns of building.

Changes in material. Brick of a different color or size, stone of a different finish, a coursing pattern that shifts partway along a wall. Even where the two were meant to match, weathering separates them: the older work has had longer to soften.

Blocked openings. A window or door that was filled in usually keeps its outline. The lintel or arch stays, the infill sits slightly proud or slightly recessed, and the brick or stone in the fill does not course through with its surroundings. Inside, a blocked opening often shows as a shallow recess or a cupboard in an odd place.

Roof scars. Where an earlier, lower roof met a wall or a chimney, it leaves a line of weathering, a row of filled holes where the flashing sat, or a change in the brickwork of the stack. A chimney with a mismatch between its lower and upper parts has usually been raised when a roof was raised.

Windows out of rhythm. Original windows sit in a pattern; later ones break it. A window that is a different size, sits at a different height, or has a different frame type from its neighbors is a later insertion. Original openings also tend to have thicker walls around them, which shows in the depth of the reveal.

Floor and ceiling levels. Where an addition meets the original, floors rarely line up exactly. A step inside a doorway, a change in ceiling height, or a beam crossing at an odd position marks the junction. Cornices that stop dead at a wall were once continuous into a room that is no longer there, or were interrupted by a wall that is new.

A sequence for reading phases

Do it in order, or the evidence contradicts itself.

1. Find the core. The oldest part of a house usually has the thickest walls, the lowest ceilings, the smallest windows and the simplest plan. It is often not the part with the best facade.
2. Find the additions. Wings, rear extensions, extra stories and porches. Each should show a joint with the core, a change in material, or a floor level that does not match.
3. Find the refacing. Many houses were given a new front without being rebuilt. A facade that is grander than the side walls, or a front wall thinner than the sides, or a roof that does not fit the front, is a mask over an older building.
4. Go inside and check. The cornice runs, stair position, door widths and the thickness of internal walls will confirm or overturn what the outside suggested.
5. Check the map. Historic map series, where they exist, show a footprint at each survey date, and a house that grew between two maps has its phases dated for you.

The reading order for a facade on its own, before any question of phases, is set out in US homes by city, and the way plan and structure limit what a later owner could change is covered in mansions.

What each period tended to do

The exact fashions differ by country and region, so treat these as patterns to test against rather than rules.

Early alterations tend to be practical: a wing for a kitchen or a service function, an extra story for more rooms, a chimney added when heating changed. They are usually behind or beside the house and make no attempt at display.

Later periods refaced. A plain older house was given a fashionable front, new windows in the current pattern, a porch, a bay. The old building survives behind the new elevation, which is why a house with a nineteenth-century face may have a much older plan.

Then came the removal of service. When staff disappeared, the service wing lost its purpose. It was demolished, converted to living rooms, or let go. A house with a scar where a wing joined, or a rear range in worse condition than the front, has usually been through this.

The most recent phase is openness. Internal walls removed to combine rooms, rear walls replaced with glass, kitchens brought forward into the plan. These leave beams where walls were, changes in floor finish where a room boundary used to be, and a back elevation entirely unlike the front. The beams and bulkheads those changes leave behind are structural evidence, and they read the same way as the joints outside.

Houses that changed use entirely

A house that became a school, a hospital, offices, a hotel or a museum carries a distinct set of marks: fire escapes and secondary stairs, corridors cut through rooms, partitions in tall spaces, and services on a scale no household needed. The original plan is usually still legible in the ceiling heights and window positions, which institutional refits rarely touch.

Where such a building now operates as a public institution and admits visitors, it publishes its own history, hours and details. Take those from the institution rather than from a summary here. Nothing on this page identifies any such building, and the site treats institutions as institutions and private houses as off limits, a distinction explained under international homes for houses abroad and applied throughout.

Where records live

The fabric is primary evidence. Records are the check.

• Historic map series held by national or regional archives and libraries, which show footprints at each survey date.
• Building permits and drainage applications at the local authority, which often include plans of alterations from the date permits began to be required.
• Survey drawings and photographs in national archives and libraries, made when buildings were recorded or threatened.
• Designation records, where a building is protected, which describe what the protection covers and often summarize the building's phases. How one national file of these is structured and searched is explained at the National Register database and research page.

Records that identify who owned or lived in a house at any date are a separate category. They exist, and this site does not use them, because the question here is what the building is, not whose it was. How property records work, and where their legitimate use ends, is a subject of its own on this site.

Common questions

How can I tell a refaced house from a rebuilt one?

Look at the side walls and the roof. A refaced house has a front that is finer or thinner than its sides and a roof that predates the facade. A rebuilt house is consistent all the way round.

Is a blocked window always an alteration?

Nearly always, though some were built blind from the start for symmetry or because a wall was too close to a boundary. A blind window that is bonded into the surrounding masonry, with no lintel doing real work, was probably never open.

Does a house with many phases have less value as architecture?

The opposite, usually. A house that shows its history is a record. What matters is that the phases are honest and the fabric is in good condition, not that the building matches a single drawing.

Can the phases be dated without any documents?

Approximately, from the materials, window types, and the sequence of joints. A precise date needs records, and the map series and permit archives above are where to start. Which layer of the city a house belongs to, and how that shows in its lot and street, is covered under New York homes for one city and Los Angeles homes for a very different one.