Page 28 - Healdsburg, CA Citywide Design Guidelines

Healdsburg’s Architectural History

and Character
The following text was taken from a publication titled “Historic
Homes of Healdsburg: A Self Guided Tour,” published in 1983.

The history and character of an area is often reflected in its
architecture. The architectural record is not complete however,
as the earliest types of local structures, the traditional Pomo
dwellings and ceremonial buildings, exist only in facsimile because
of their perishable building materials (willow rods, earth and
foliage). The first structures built by the Euro-American settlers in
the 1840s, adobe or split-log redwood dwellings, also have no
remaining examples within the city limits. Those few adobes or
hand-hewn cabins that were built in the area have for the most
part been destroyed or covered over with clapboard.

Fortunately, there are numerous examples of the most common
type of Homestead style architecture, usually small, single-gable
dwellings that utilized planed redwood from the early sawmills
and newly available machine-cut nails. As bachelor settlers
married, and large families began to settle, those dwellings
became larger, but remained unadorned, indicating that family
resources were directed to areas other than home embellishment.

By the 1870s, the prosperity of local businesses and farms began
to be reflected in more elaborate architecture. Some large Greek
Revival style homes, embellished with classical columns serving
as porch supports, and imitating the shape of a Greek temple,
were built in that era. Several Italianate-style mansions, so named
for their style model, the stoic formal stone villas of Italy, were
also built between 1870 and 1890. These larger Italianates, with
their characteristic decorative roof brackets, had their middle
class counter-part in the small single-story Italianate, a foursquare
dwelling with a hipped roof that formed the town’s earliest tracts.

20 Healdsburg Citywide Design Guidelines