A hall-and-parlor house is a type of

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

house found in early-modern to 19th century

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, as well as in

colonial North America The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...

. The Hall-and-Parlor or Hall-and-Chamber House
in ''American houses: a field guide to the architecture of the home'' by Gerald L. Foster It is presumed to have been the model on which other North American house types have been developed, such as the Cape Cod house,

saltbox A saltbox house is a gable-roofed residential structure that is typically two stories in the front and one in the rear. It is a traditional New England style of home, originally timber framed, which takes its name from its resemblance to a woode ...

, and

central-passage house The central-passage house, also known variously as central hall plan house, center-hall house, hall-passage-parlor house, Williamsburg cottage, and Tidewater-type cottage, was a vernacular, or folk form, house type from the colonial period onward ...

, and in turn influenced the somewhat-later

I-house The I-house is a vernacular house type, popular in the United States from the colonial period onward. The I-house was so named in the 1930s by Fred Kniffen, a cultural geographer at Louisiana State University who was a specialist in folk archit ...

. In England it had been a more modest development from the medieval

hall house The hall house is a type of vernacular house traditional in many parts of England, Wales, Ireland and lowland Scotland, as well as northern Europe, during the Middle Ages, centring on a hall. Usually timber-framed, some high status examples wer ...

Origins and features

The hall-and-parlor style entails a rectangular, two-room configuration. The style began in early-modern England, where it was often a

timber-framed 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 ...

structure. Many could not afford a large house; however, putting up a wall in the only room created a smaller area in the rear of the house called a

parlor A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessar ...

. This was the private room and usually contained a bed. In early examples, the house is one room wide and two deep. The two adjoining rooms are connected by an interior door. An exterior door leads to the

hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gr ...

, the larger of the two rooms and the one in the front of the house. Behind the hall is the parlor. The hall may have been used for cooking, while the parlor was the general living space and bedroom. In colonial America, hall-and-parlor houses were two rooms wide and one deep. They were often one and a half stories tall, with a steeply pitched side-

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d roof. The style was at one time so ubiquitous that it was known colloquially as the "Virginia style". In the Southern Colonies, there were usually flush or exterior gable-end chimneys on one or both sides of the house. Northern examples often featured a central chimney. The houses were most often of wood-frame construction on a brick or stone foundation, but sometimes the entire structure was masonry. The windows were often asymmetrically placed. Common dimensions for the entire house were from deep and wide. The larger hall was the general-purpose room and, if a loft existed, contained a stairway or ladder to it. The parlor was the smaller of the two rooms and was more private. It was commonly used for sleeping. The

, also known as the hall-passage-parlor house, is believed by architectural historians to have developed from the earlier hall-and-parlor house type. In fact, many examples are known where an earlier hall-and-parlor house had an additional wall added inside the larger hall room to form a central-passage house.

Examples

The hall-and-parlor style was common in early-19th-century construction in

Williamson County, Tennessee Williamson County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 247,726. The county seat is Franklin, and the county is located in Middle Tennessee. The county is named after Hugh Williamson, ...

, including the John Pope House,

Samuel Crockett House The Samuel Crockett House, also known as Forge Seat, is a property in Brentwood, Tennessee, United States, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988. It was home of Samuel Crockett, son of Andrew Crockett, whose home ...

John Neely House The John Neely House is a property in Thompsons Station, Tennessee dating from c. 1810 that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's of ...

, and

John Crafton House The John Crafton House (also known as Ralroth Farm) is a historic property in Franklin, Tennessee, United States, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 13, 1988. It was built, remodeled, or has other significance ...

References

{{Architecture in the United States Vernacular architecture House types Architecture in England Colonial architecture in the United States