Victorian Cottage Residences

Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-52), the first great American landscape gardener, was one of the earliest and most influential popularizers of something new on the American scene — the small, inexpensive detached house. Into a countryside dotted with log cabins and occasional Greek Revival mansions, he introduced the tasteful, efficient cottage residence in all its variations, including Gothic, bracketed, Italianate, and "rustic." His enormously successful books spread the gospel to thousands of ho…