A broad term describing the architecture prevalent in the Dutch-settled parts of America during the early part of the 17th century. The earliest houses were simple one-story, single-room permanent dwellings. In rural areas, the design of houses depended primarily on available building materials. Where stone was abundant, houses were built with thick stone walls; where suitable clay was available, houses were built of brick, usually laid in a Flemish bond pattern; where timber was plentiful, the houses were of wood construction with siding of wide weatherboarding. Common characteristics included: a roof covering of wood shingles or tiles; steeply pitched gables with parapets; Dutch gambrel roofs with flared eaves having a considerable overhang; straight-line gables; a chimney located in a thick exterior wall at a gable end or gambrel end of the house; casement windows with small panes and battened shutters; a Dutch door; heavy plank floors, bake ovens. In urban areas such as New Amsterdam, houses were typically two and a half or three and a half stories high, although those in which the owners also conducted a business on the ground floor and lived in the floors above were four or five stories high. Common characteristics
included: thick exterior walls usually having a rough timber structure, faced with a brick veneer laid in a Flemish bond pattern with the facing secured to the timber framing by decorative wrought-iron anchors; where wood was plentiful, wide weatherboarding used as siding instead of brick facing; stone walls in regions where stone was commonly available; a parapeted gable-end wall often facing the street; typically, corbie gables or steeply pitched straight-line gables; often, a gambrel roof with flared eaves; usually, a brick chimney within the exterior walls, topped with a chimney cap; casement windows with small glass panes in cames; battened shutters (later replaced by double-hung windows); a Dutch door or paneled double door, often with a transom light above; usually an exterior stoop in front of the door.