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WHY IS THIS CALLED PRAIRIE STYLE?

The influence of the Prairie School is seen in this Munger Place home. Like most other homes in Munger Place, this one is essentially a generic "American Four-Square" home. But the builder has incorporated three "tricks" to "lower" the home visually: 1) a low-pitched hip roof, 2) wide, overhanging eaves, enclosed to create a large horizontal plane, 3) a change from wooden lap siding on the ground-floor walls to wooden shingles on the second story.

Other elements of the home, such as the porch columns, the gables, and the prominent triangular brackets, come from the design aesthetic of the Arts & Crafts Movement.

The neighborhood now known as Munger Place Historic District was built in the years from 1905 through 1918. Munger Place has the best collection of Prairie homes in Dallas.

Illustration by James Frye, © Ken Lampton.

Most Homes Are A Mixture Of Different Styles

Builders took the existing home plans for so-called "American Four Square" homes and changed some of the exterior design elements to give them more of the ground-hugging look which was favored by the Prairie School:

• They lowered the rooflines by substituting hip roofs for gabled roofs.
• They boxed in the eaves and extended them farther out beyond the walls. They incorporated more horizontal lines into the exterior facade.
• And they changed from tall narrow windows to wider windows "ganged" in groups of two or three windows.

The two renderings below illustrate how elements of different architectural styles were often combined in a single home. The overall form of both homes is the same: they are both good examples of the so-called "American Foursquare" design which was built by the thousands between 1900 and 1920.

The first home mixes elements of the Prairie Style with elements of Neoclassical Revival. The low-pitched hip roof, broad enclosed overhanging eaves, and the emphasis on horizontal lines is consistent with ideals of the Prairie School.

However, the Doric porch pillars and prominent triangular front gable are carried over from Neoclassical Victorian homes of the 1890's.

The second home would be right at home in Munger Place, the bastion of Prairie style in East Dallas. However, like many homes in Munger Place, it is more "foursquare" than "Prairie".

The hip roof and dormer arrangement is seen all over Munger Place, frequently in combination with other elements of Prairie Style. But the open eaves with exposed rafter ends are typical elements from the Arts & Crafts Movement. The full width front porch, with its roof supported by two massive columns is similar to the handling of porches on the so-called Craftsman Bungalows.