In American architecture, painted ladies are Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings repainted, starting in the 1960s, in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book Painted Ladies: San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians.[1] Although polychrome decoration was common in the Victorian era, the colors used on these houses are not based on historical precedent.[2]
Since then, the term has also been used to describe groups of colorfully repainted Victorian houses in other American cities, such as the Charles Village neighborhood in Baltimore; Lafayette Square in St. Louis; the greater San Francisco and New Orleans areas, in general; Columbia-Tusculum in Cincinnati; the Old West End in Toledo, Ohio; the neighborhoods of McKnight and Forest Park in Springfield, Massachusetts; and the city of Cape May, New Jersey.[3][4][5] They also exist internationally, for example in New Zealand's capital city Wellington.[6]
- ^ Larsen, Michael; Pomada, Elizabeth (1978). Painted Ladies: San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians. New York: E.P. Dutton. ISBN 9780525482444.
- ^ Moss, Roger W. (1994). "Nineteenth-Century Paints: A Documentary Approach". In Moss, Roger W. (ed.). Paint in America: The Colors of Historic Buildings. John Wiley & Sons. p. 59. ISBN 0471144118.
- ^ Courtemanche, Dolores (September 23, 1990). "Proper Painted Ladies". Telegram & Gazette. p. G1. ISSN 1050-4184.
- ^ Curtis, Nancy H. (July 25, 1993). "Color It What?". Chicago Tribune. p. 3I. ISSN 1085-6706.
- ^ Ukraine, Karen (August 2, 1996). "The Victorian Rage". Boston Herald. p. 44. ISSN 0738-5854.
- ^ "Wellington's historic Painted Lady sells for 'significantly' more than RV". stuff.co.nz. August 25, 2016. Retrieved June 27, 2022.