The Georgian Style
			The Georgian Style Places To Visit Georgian Types Our 18th Century originals are confined to the thirteen colonies, but Georgian style flourished again, more widely, during the height of the Colonial Revival. Georgian-period design—symmetrical, well proportioned, simple yet substantial and vigorously detailedis timeless and uplifting.		WESTOVER (1730-1734) Charles City, Virginia The robust classicism of the Georgian period is evident at this justly famous early James River plantation in Virginia. Rarely does an architectural style last a century, but that is the case with the Georgian. Named for the 18th-century Kings George, the style was embraced by colonists who gave an American twist to variants built from Maine to Georgia during those historic decades of colonial prosperity and revolution. The vocabulary is from Renaissance classicism, born in Italy and flourishing in England from about 1650. Georgian architecture shows up in North and South during the first quarter of the 18th century. The first high-style examples are Southern, built usually by affluent tobacco planters. Grand examples--of wood rather than brick as in Virginia--became more common in the North only after 1750. During the later Georgian period, houses throughout the Colonies were more embellished. The doorway might be extended to form an entry portico; dormers and quoins became common; two-storey pilasters and pedimented center gables were introduced. Georgian houses are sometimes hard to distinguish from those of the ensuing Federal period. Inside, however, they are quite different. Where Federal (or Adam) interiors are light and delicate, with moulded plaster and ornament, Georgian interiors are bold, even baroque, with heavy carvings and woodwork. Entire rooms might be paneled, most often with painted pine. Towns that became major cities after the Revolutionary War have lost most of their colonial architecture. But others, left behind in the booms of the 19th century, are graced today by their original buildings of the Georgian period: Charleston, South Carolina; Annapolis, Maryland; Newport, Rhode Island; Marblehead, Mass.