The architecture of Bermuda has developed over the past four centuries. The archipelago's isolation, environment, climate, and scarce resources have been key driving points, though inspiration from Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas is evident. Distinctive elements appeared with initial settlement in the early 17th century, and by the second half of that century features that remain common today began to appear.
Pastel Bermuda cottages are often regarded as a hallmark of the island, along with pink beaches and Bermuda shorts; the style has even been described as the country's only indigenous art form.The Town of St. George World Heritage Site: Advice for renovating, restoring, maintaining or developing a building within the Town of St. George In addition to the local style, historical military buildings and forts and modern office buildings are highly visible. The historical architecture of Bermuda has received recognition from UNESCO, with the Town of St. George and some twenty-two forts and military facilities in St. George's Parish being declared World Heritage Sites.
Bermuda style
The archetypical Bermuda house is a low, squared building with a stepped, white roof and pastel-painted walls, both of which are made out of stone. Between roof and wall are a series of eaves painted a third colour, which is also used on the wooden shutters of relatively small windows. Often built on a slope, there is a set of stairs, wider at the base than at the top, leading up to a porch or veranda around the front door. Rare embellishments include a brick pattern down the corners of the building, and narrow moulding to highlight features such as windows.
The roofs are designed to catch water, of which there is no fresh supply in Bermuda apart from rain. The walls are designed to restrict damage from hurricanes and are required by law to be able to withstand wind speeds of over .
Houses are often given names.
History and development
Initial development (1600–1700)
The predominance of stone as a building material came about early in Bermuda's history. The first settlers built using the native and abundant Bermuda cedar, but such structures were rarely able to withstand either the normal winds or the occasional hurricane.Raine, David F. Architecture Bermuda Style (Bermuda: Pompano 1988), p. 11 Furthermore, the Somers Isles Company intended to exploit the value of cedar wood, particularly for shipbuilding, and soon passed laws that forbade the felling and use of that wood without express permission. The only material left for settlers to use was Bermuda's limestone foundation (often called "coral" for its origin), with the stone being cut into square bricks – typically about by .
This method of using large stone blocks proved expensive, with one 1890 estimate being that a Bermuda house cost three times more than it should. The main cause of this expense was high labour costs, though the rarity of building-quality limestone also contributed. However, this did not prove expensive enough to price the poor out of the market, thus restricting the growth of shanty towns.Drysdale, William. "Bermuda's stone houses; how the soft rock is cut and hardened", New York Times, 30 March 1980.
The archetypical house of the late 17th century had several distinguishing features. The building was usually quite simple in design, with a similar plan to a contemporary English farmhouse. Though usually only one storey tall, most were built facing out from slopes (possibly to preserve the comparatively fertile valleys for agriculture, a dominant industry until the 20th century), thus necessitating a set of steps to the front entrance. These staircases were styled to curve out, so ending up far wider at the base than at the top. This flared style, known locally today as "Welcoming Arm" stairs, remains common.Raine, p. 23 Less common variants used parallel arms, and in the narrow streets of the Town of St. George staircases were often flush with the wall.Jarvis, Michael, Bermuda Architectural Heritage Series: St. George's (Bermuda National Trust: 1998), p. 91 At the top of the stairs would be a porch-like vestibule, larger than was common elsewhere, where visitors and passersby could rest in the shade. These porch areas were continuously expanded with furniture and muslin mosquito nets.Raine, p. 21 Wooden window shutters became common, particularly "jalousies" — which were hinged at the top — that were probably imported from the West Indies. Food was often stored in a buttery separate from the main house, which was designed to keep food cool. This was achieved by keeping the actual storage room raised above the ground, typically five or six steps worth of height, and using a pointed roof, enabling convective heat transfer to keep warm air from the food. Kitchens were also distinctive, occasionally placed in out-buildings or in basements and noted for the use of wide, raised chimneys possibly inspired by the open hearth.Raine, p. 22
The earliest roofing was made of palmetto thatch but, partially from encouragement from the colonial government,Raine, p. 14 stone shingles slowly came to be preferred. By 1687, only 29 of the 579 houses in Bermuda had been upgraded to stone and only 63 were shingled.Chudleigh, Diana. Bermuda Architectural Heritage Series: Smith's Parish (Bermuda National Trust: 2005).
The buildings were originally quite plain, due to the brittleness of limestone and lingering Puritanical asceticism. Only two means of decor have been observed in 17th century buildings: "Eyebrow Windows" and gable-ends. The former may have been inspired by the Gothic architecture of churches.Raine, p. 24 By the start of the 18th century, the latter, inspired by contemporary Stuart architecture and demonstrating resistance to hurricane damage when buttressed by a chimney,Trimingham, Michael. Bermuda Architectural Heritage Series: St. George's (Bermuda National Trust: 1998) p. 35 had splintered into three distinct styles: stepped, bowed and scalloped, with evident similarities to Spanish and Portuguese colonial architecture.
Owing to the lack of water sources on the island, roofs were and are still used for rainwater collection. Early water tanks were placed not underground, but in adjacent stone structures later likened by one American observer to a lean-to. These tanks were fed via a stone gutter from the roof. Sunk six to eight feet down, they were typically rectangular and appeared barrel-vaulted above the surface. A distinctive style of developed, with a stepped profile of limestone slabs, grouted to make it impermeable and to stay clean. Rain on such a roof is slowed by the steps, rather than sloping tiles, and is collected by the gutter. This dependence on harvester rain led to a culture of water conservation, even with today's desalination plants.
Interior wooden elements such as the ceiling and floors would be made of wood, often pine or hemlock from the continent.
Middle period (1700–1900)
Into the 18th century, the settlement in Bermuda, and thus the architecture of Bermuda, had been developing for a century. In 1712 and 1714, two particularly bad hurricane strikes showcased the need for the resilient local structures in lieu of European designs, thus ensuring that local architecture would continue to progress.Campbell, Colin. "Wooden Houses", Dale Butler, JP MP, The Wooden Houses of Bermuda (Atlantic Publishing: Florida 2006)
Georgian architecture, at least in the British sense, did not catch on in Bermuda,Raine, p. 39 though the contemporary local style did resemble the "colonial Georgian" of North America.Bandon, Alexandra and Amy Hughes. "The Family Plan: The Georgian Style", This Old House, p. 2 During the 18th century embellishing buildings with decoration and adopting elements from Chinese and Neo-Classical architecture became common. Finials, a chinoiserie fad in both Europe and North America, appeared on gable-ends and buttery pinnacles. While the original, ten-to-fifty inch Chinese finials were elaborate designs of porcelain glazed yellow, green, red, blue, orange and buff, those in Bermuda, made of brittle local limestone, remained stone-coloured and rarely exceeded . Another Chinese architectural import was the now-iconic Moongate. Again, the Bermudian version was made of limestone and, unlike the Asian originals, not sunken into walls.
Stone pillars came into vogue, adorning driveway entrances. Square, instead of the cylindrical of their Neo-Classical inspiration, these pillars were crowned with capitals of heterodox stone slabs stacked on top of each other to give a geometric pattern. While eaves in the West Indies tended to be made large enough to provide shade, those in Bermuda were kept shallow — less than a foot — to reduce damage from hurricane wind, which could push against larger eaves and lift the roof off. Jack-rafters, also known as rafter-feet, were toyed with as decoration.Raine, p. 40 They were left exposed, similar to corbels, and painted a colour that contrasted with the roof and walls.Raine, p. 41
Internally, well-steeped tray ceilings replaced the open-beamed Tudor style. Above this, the roofs changed considerably. The hip roof, shallower than its predecessors, was adopted,Jarvis, St. George's, p. 72 and roofing slates of thin, handcut limestone slabs replaced shingles. These slates were slightly over an inch thick, and ten to long; laid over a cedar frame in an overlapping pattern, they gave a down-stepped appearance. Finally, the roofs were coated with a mixture of lime, sand and water and, when available, turtle and whale oil to provide extra weather-proofing. Apart from the animal oil, this method of roof construction continues to be used. The walls, likewise, were often whitewashed, giving the island a faux snowcover if seen from a distance, though American author Mark Twain preferred to liken it to cake icing, "the white of marble...modest and retiring [in comparison]". French botanist André Michaux, on the other hand, found the reflective glare of the roofs fatiguing.Shorto, Sylvia. Bermuda Gardens & Houses (Rizzoli: New York 1996), p. 36 A common alternative to the whitewash was a simple lime plaster made — much like the wash — of lime, red clay and turtle or whale oil. If well-maintained, this plaster kept walls free of moisture, but if cracked, moisture would be retained.Trimingham, p. 25
As the water available for domestic use was obtained via the roof, the only way to expand the amount available was to expand the house laterally. Rooms were added to the existing block, first giving buildings a cruciform appearance and later leaving no standard floor plan for the archetypical house. By 1711, propertied Bermudians often lived in houses of three to six rooms, the central of which was called the "hall"; this "hall" served as the principle sitting and formal dining room. Porches were often closed in with stone walls and window rather than being open-air. Common rooms included the "parlour", a bedroom, two or three "bedchambers", an "entry" distinct from the porch and a peripheral "outlet" room often at the back of the house.Chudleigh, p. 2
Archways came to be featured heavily in doorways. Porches, backdoors and even basements featured simple arches, rarely decorated with capitals or voussoir-style keystones, that show inspiration from both Colonial Mexico and Saxon-Roman styles. These arches continued outward, appearing as garden gateways.Raine, p. 42
The 18th century saw the use of the casement window adjoined to the wall plate between the wall and rafters. In time, the casement would be replaced by the sash window, and improved building techniques allowed window- and door-frames to be removed from the wallplate.Trimingham, p. 3