Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002

New Jersey has produced two local styles of domestic architecture. First was the low sandstone Dutch Colonial house, a style developed in the Hackensack Valley, where it flourished until about 1800. During the same period, the brick and glass industries in the southern part of the State produced a second indigenous type of building best termed Swedish Colonial. Throughout the nineteenth century the State was affected by a succession of European influences, and it was not until the 1890's that New Jersey again began to work out architectural problems in terms of its own requirements. The result has been a new and refreshing approach in design, evident in suburban planning and resort development, but of late more particularly in industrial buildings.

Paradoxically, the Dutch style did not begin to develop in the north until after the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664. Introduction of slave labor in that year made the quarrying of brown sandstone practicable and was responsible for its use in the walls of the earlier homesteads. Cut from shallow quarries, it was laid in beds of clay mortar taken from the surrounding fields and mixed with straw, which became hard and weathertight when dry; when pointing-up was necessary in later years, it was done with lime mortar, leaving conspicuous white joints. Sometimes the builders used finished cut stone only on the front façade and for the corner quoins, filling in the remainder of the walls with coursed rubble, as in the Demarest house at River Edge, but generally the stonework was cut in regular coursed bond (as in bricklaying).

The predominant characteristics of the Dutch Colonial style are a long sweeping roof line, with deep overhanging eaves at front and rear, and dose-cropped gable ends. Small houses were given a pitched roof; larger ones a gambrel roof with the upper pitch much shortened and flattened and the lower one lengthened and curved. In the later period the overhang was sometimes extended and developed into a porch at front and rear. The wall faces of the gable ends were shingled or covered with siding for protection. Often the bargeboard along the raked roof line was carved with ornament.

These houses nearly always faced south regardless of the direction of the highway, so that the eaves afforded day-long shade from the summer sun. As families outgrew their homes it was customary to add a wing larger than the original building. Thus the original structure of the Vreeland house (1818) in Leonia became the kitchen wing of a new and more pretentious dwelling. Frequently a second wing was added at the opposite end, forming a symmetrical composition, as in the Ackerman and Hopper houses on Polifly Road, Hackensack.

The charm and beauty of these houses have been enhanced by time, and the deep overhang of the eaves gives them an air of comfort and domestic security that is not often equaled in other types of American Colonial building.

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