The American Foursquare

In 1895, the Grodavent Brothers of Denver published a plan for a typical-looking brick American Foursquare in Carpentry and Building magazine.¹ Whether this is the first "Denver Square" is debated, but certainly the good brothers knew their market and their future. The American Foursquare or Denver Square house pattern is an indigenous American design that spread across the country by plan book and catalog. Often classified as a Vernacular Classical Revival, the style has details that range from ornate Neoclassical to proto-Prairie.

The growing  neighborhoods of the Mile High City provided fertile soil for this efficient and flexible plan. At the turn of the century, some Denverites believed that the Queen Anne and Victorians styles represented the attitude of foolishness and exorbitance that gave rise to the Silver Crash of 1893.² Solid, simple Squares and classic Colonials populated Denver's first streetcar suburbs in Capitol Hill, Cheeseman Park, City Park, Park Hill and West Highlands.

Typically, the foursquare is two stories, with a hipped roof, a front porch stretching across the entire front, and at least one windowed dormer in the attic. The four walls of the house are of roughly equal dimension, thus creating a square. Fenestration is generally balanced and symmetrical, although some Denver Squares have smaller windows in the center of the second floor.

The placement of the stairs determines which of the two common variations the house fits: center-door and side-door.In a center-door foursquare, the entrance is in the middle of the porch. The stairs typically touch the back wall of the house. More common is the side-door plan, where the entrance is on either the left or right side of the front porch.