Honolulu Tudor—French Norman Cottages Thematic Group is a thematic resource or

multiple property submission The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of Historic districts in the United States, districts, sites, buildings, struc ...

that describe fifteen Tudor or French Norman houses in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

. All these houses were listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on June 5, 1987.

History

During the boom years of the 1920s, as immigration and tourism to the

Territory of Hawaii The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory ( Hawaiian: ''Panalāʻau o Hawaiʻi'') was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 30, 1900, until August 21, 1959, when most of its territory, excluding ...

from the

West Coast of the United States The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S ...

increased sharply, many new private homes for the growing middle class showed the design influence of the California bungalows or

Mock Tudor Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

English cottages so popular in the Continental United States. One of the most influential

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

s in

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

Hart Wood Hart Wood (1880–1957) was an American architect who flourished during the "Golden Age" of Hawaiian architecture. He was one of the principal proponents of a distinctive "Hawaiian style" of architecture appropriate to the local environment and r ...

, had published a series of articles extolling the appropriateness of the English

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a Cotter (farmer), cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager ...

style for

suburban A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...

living. In 1920, he moved his practice from

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

to Honolulu, where he designed three of the fifteen exemplary English Tudor–French Norman Cottages built during 1923–1932 that were added to the

on 5 June 1987. The Tudor features include asymmetrical, multilevel floor plans and projections,

half-timber Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

and

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

facades, small-paned

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...

s, and roofs that are either high-pitched or rounded to resemble

thatching Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

. Although some of the same features mark grand Tudor mansions like the Charles M. Cooke, Jr., House, these cottages are much more modest structures of one to three stories, built of frame or masonry, with more playful or romantic elements evoking imagined "olde English" or French Norman antecedents. The interiors are designed to be cozy and intimate, with much more wall space than window openings, often with

fireplace A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the design. ...

s and open-beam

ceiling A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limits of a room. It is not generally considered a structural element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the roof structure or the floor of a story above. Ceilings ...

s. California regional styles also influenced new public buildings in the Territory. Spanish Colonial Revival and, more broadly, Mediterranean Revival

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

can be seen in Honolulu Hale, President William McKinley High School, the

Fire Stations of Oahu The Honolulu Fire Department (HFD) operates their 44 Fire Stations on the Island of Oahu, and in and around Honolulu. Seven current or former stations are on the National Register of Historic Places, of which five are still in use today as fire sta ...

, and numerous other public buildings erected during this period.

Listed Properties

The following Honolulu properties were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 1987:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Honolulu Tudor-French Norman Cottages English-Norman cottages Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Hawaii History of Oahu Houses in Honolulu County, Hawaii Spanish Colonial Revival architecture in the United States Tudor Revival architecture in Hawaii Mediterranean Revival architecture Buildings and structures in Honolulu 1987 establishments in Hawaii National Register of Historic Places in Honolulu