Harmony’s Architectural Styles

Canadian farmhouses were greatly influenced by European settlers, with styles inspired by Gothic to Swiss to Victorian. Earlier homes used clapboard and later variations featured brick. Wooden houses were then the norm as railroads brought wood from the Rockies across the farming West. By 1915, houses could even be purchased as kits from Eaton’s catalog. Design characteristics of Farmhouse Style homes include two stories, hip or gable roof, dormers, vertical evenly-spaced double hung windows, and of course the welcoming wrap-around porches. Both traditional and modern interpretations exist.

This Style is Available in Estate and Move Up Collections

The American Craftsman style, or the American Arts and Crafts movement, is an American architectural, design, arts and lifestyle philosophy that began in the late 19th century. As a design and art movement it remained popular into the 1930s. In decorative arts and architectural design it has continued with numerous revivals and restoration projects through present times. Characteristics include low/medium pitched roof either hipped or gabled, wide eaves/triangular brackets, dormers, asymmetrical form, porches with thick columns, and handcrafted details.

While not strictly a style that has a long history in the Calgary area, French Country has become immensely popular over the past 20 years – especially for estate homes on acreages or oversized community lots. This beautiful manor-style architecture includes steep or flared rooflines, prominent use of stone, tall thin windows, arches, multiple gables and/or dormers, brick highlights around windows and doors, trimmed with painted timbers, wrought iron railings, and a large central front chimney.

This Style is Available in The Tamarack Collection.

Prairie Style is the distinctive architectural style mostly made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright with the MidWest homes he designed between 1900-1917. Prairie houses and other buildings were generally two-story structures with single-story wings. They utilized horizontal lines, ribbon windows, low pitched and gently sloping roofs, suppressed, heavy-set chimneys, overhangs, open floorplans and sequestered gardens. There are traditional and modern variations of this architectural style.

This Style is Available in The Aspen and The Tamarack Collections

The notion that “form follows function” was a dictum originally expressed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s early mentor Louis Sullivan, meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose. Simplicity. Clarity of forms. With Contemporary Style there is a visual emphasis on horizontal and vertical lines, asymmetrical massing and proportions, low pitched/flat/or angled roofs, large windows, high ceilings, and simple, open, flexible spaces. Traditional modern or Contemporary versions of Farmhouse or Prairie all work.

This Style is Available in The Aspen and The Tamarack Collections.