Lancaster, Pennsylvania was a manufacturing town for most of its two-hundred-year history, threaded through with railroad spurs and trolley lines that knitted together workshops, houses and markets. Lancaster lay like a piece of fabric on the Amish countryside, the warp and woof of its gridded streets lined with two-story row houses.
Row houses in Lancaster were built of brick and stone. Most had porches that were slightly elevated above the street. There were no front yards, giving the row houses a slightly urban flair while the porches projected a neighborly feel. You can see that people were proud of their houses because they altered them over the years, replacing a dormer here, adding a finial there.
Builders in Lancaster built a street of row houses at a time, perhaps 8-10 houses. Sometimes they’d build houses in pairs, with small passages connecting the back yards to the front. Later they’d build 10 or 12 more, building on lessons learned: elevating the porch slightly for privacy, enlarging the windows. Lancaster has the peacefulness of an ordinary place. Its porches make us feel at home. Buildings like these don’t stand out, nor do they make the history books. Instead they hold a city together.
Frank Harmon , an architect in Charleston, S.C. is the author and watercolor artist behind Native Places.
