1. The simplicity  of the hipped roof  is in sharp contrast with homes built in the last throes of the Victorian Era.

2. All exterior walls are equal in dimensions and surface area.

3. The extreme economy often led individual home owners to add a few decorative touches such as this porch or a portico, a widow's walk, a bay window, or a simple dormer.

4. Notice that the roof overhang is pronounced.

The American Foursquare, or  Prairie Box, was a post-Victorian style that shared many features of  the architecture pioneered by Frank Lloyd Wright. The shape provided roomy interiors for homes on small lots.  The simple, square shape made the Foursquare Style especially practical for mail order house kits from catalogue companies. The smaller Foursquare is sometimes classed as a cottage home  

Although most were of extreme simplicity.  but elaborate rather large versions of this house were erected in the Edwardian Era and they are anything but unimpressive.

690 Main Street.Creative builders often dressed up the basic foursquare. Although these houses are always the same square shape, they can have features borrowed from any of the earlier styles. Bay windows,  small towers and "gingerbread" and even exposed roof rafters,beamed ceilings and built-in cabinetry were sometimes thrown in to help relieve the starkness.