These are often the type of homes that you can’t help noticing as you walk along our streets — streets such as Bath or Laguna. Sometimes, it seems like people piled on all the exterior details they could afford to show off their wealth. These Queen Anne–style homes are often called “Victorian homes,” but technically, a Victorian home is any home that was built during Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901). Queen Anne–style homes were popular from 1880 to 1910, and somehow, they are not at all related to Queen Anne, who reigned from 1702 to 1714.
Here in Santa Barbara, our city’s list of Designated Structures of Merit indicates that Queen Anne–style homes were built here from 1873 to 1910. Many of these homes have two stories. One-story Queen Anne–style homes are usually called Queen Anne cottages or Folk Victorian. The roofs of Queen Anne–style homes are usually steeply pitched, and some have decorative roof cresting along the top. (Cresting looks like a fancy metal fence along the roof ridge.) Many of these metallic details have not survived the years — sometimes lightning or rust was the culprit, and sometimes it was because homeowners removed the metalwork during World War I or World War II when people were encouraged to contribute metal to be recycled for military use. Roof cresting that remained on your home during the war years was a very visible symbol that you were not “doing your bit.”
Some Queen Anne–style homes also had towers (round, square, octagonal) to further draw your eye upward, as well as decorative details under a gable on the front façade. On a modest version of a Queen Anne–style home, sometimes the only decoration is tucked up underneath the gable. I’ve noticed that a number of homes in Santa Barbara have a wooden ornament under the gable that resembles a rising sun.