Style 101: Queen Anne

Queen Anne home | Photograph by Rebecca McManus, 2016

The Queen Anne style originates in late 19th-century England and was named by Richard Norman Shaw. It is unclear why he selected the term “Queen Anne” since the style’s aesthetic is not from the reign of England’s Queen Anne but rather from earlier Elizabethan and Jacobean England. H.H. Richardson’s Watts-Sherman House (Newport, Rhode Island, c. 1975) was the first major example of the style in the United States, but it was the Queen Anne constructions at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1875 that popularized the style. By 1880, Queen Anne architecture had become a popular residential style for homes of all sizes, costs, and locations. The style had a short period of popularity and was overtaken by the Colonial Revival and Neoclassical styles by 1910.

There are 75 designated Queen Anne resources in San Diego. Could yours be next? Check out our handy infographic below to see if your home has the defining characteristics of the Queen Anne style!