A Street of Styles: Stroll along Federal Avenue and see the roots of American architecture

"What style is it?" At one time or another, any homeowner might ask this question, and the answer is not always an easy one. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American architects mastered a mind-boggling vocabulary of columns, cornices, quoins and pediments they'd seen when traveling through Europe and Great Britain. Smitten, they came home with drawings, photographs and books on their favorite castles, country manors and town houses. Their commissions were sometimes for straightforward duplications, sometimes for freely drawn combinations of elements from different periods, styles and countries.

Nestled just east of Tenth Avenue East, one of north Capitol Hill's busy arterials, Federal Avenue East is one of the city's most "stylish" streets. It is chock full of beautiful houses designed by these local architects in almost every imaginable traditional style popular in America through the first quarter of the 20th century.

First and foremost, Federal is a street of "revivals." Architects looked back to earlier house forms and embellishments and created distinguished, elegantly proportioned buildings to appeal to the growing and more affluent middle class. New England, Southern, Spanish and Dutch Colonial shared the avenue with half-timbered English Tudor, Norman and French Provincial manor, English country cottage and Mediterranean villa. At the same time, large Craftsman-style homes made inroads into the streetscape, their rustic informality contrasting with their more pedigreed neighbors. Another popular, less "high-style" style, the Classic Box or American foursquare, also shows itself on the avenue. But it is far more common in the subdivisions east of Volunteer Park.

While contemporary buildings intrude here and there, a stroll along beautifully manicured Federal Avenue East is, for the most part, hardly different from what it must have been like back in 1930. If you want to know "What style is it?" you can start with a comparison of the popular revival styles, shown here with is a list of the style's common elements. You can also consult several excellent books on the subject:

"The American House" by Mary Mix Foley (Harper and Row, New York, 1980); "A Field Guide to American Houses" by Virginia and Lee McAlester (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1986); "American Shelter" by Lester Walker (Overlook Press, New York, 1981); "What Style Is It? A Guide to American Architecture" by John Poppeliers, S. Allen Chambers, Jr., and Nancy Schwartz (National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1983).

Guided Tours

The 2002 Viewpoints tour season, a program of the Seattle Architectural Foundation, operates a variety of guided architectural walking tours from May through October. On Saturday, June 15, Federal Avenue East will be the featured Explore tour. Other neighborhood tours include Queen Anne, Cascade, Roanoke Park, Wallingford bungalows and the commercial work of architects John Graham, Sr., Carl Gould and Henry Bittman. Also offered: 15 hour-long Focus Tours of buildings in Seattle and King County and Saturday-morning Discover Tours of Art & Architecture, Art Deco, Theaters and Skyscrapers in the central business district. For information and a program brochure, call 206-667-9184 or info@seattlearchitectural.org.

Lawrence Kreisman is program director for Historic Seattle. He serves on the Seattle Landmarks Preservation Board and is author of "Made to Last: Historic Preservation in Seattle and King County." Barry Wong is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff photographer.