Chateauesque architecture (fl. 1890-1910) is a Victorian revival style that reused the forms and decoration of Renaissance-style French chateaux. An uncommon style that was quite expensive to build in, it is generally seen on mansions and fancy hotels of the era. However, its distinctive spires and steeply pitched roofs are certainly beautiful to behold.
The term chateau (plural chateaux) is French for a manor house or palace, though in modern usage it has expanded to any large mansion in the style. Early examples were built around the 10th centuries as fortified castles, but later on, they became more fanciful. Chateauesque architecture generally looks to the chateaux of the late 15th to early 17th centuries.
Chateauesque mansions were being built in Britain as early as the 1870s. In the United States, the style was championed by Richard Morris Hunt in the late 1880s, who had studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and designed mansions for wealthy families such as the Vanderbilts. Similarly, Canada began building its great railway hotels at the same time. It ultimately became more of a national style for Canada.
Chateauesque architecture is uncommon because of its region-specific nature (largely the Northeast and Canada) and elaborate nature. It is largely a residential style, but it has been applied to hotels and public buildings. Additionally, styles such as Romanesque Revival/Richardsonian Romanesque are known to borrow Chateauesque features.
Chateauesque architecture looks to French chateaux as precedent, so certain tendencies are immediately apparent. The style is characterized by its often asymmetrical, elaborate assembly of forms, creating a picturesque composition. Another defining feature is the steeply pitched roofs and towers, which employ both classical and Gothic features. Ornamentation is typically either Renaissance or Gothic, or a combination of the two. Given the cost to construct a building in the style, Chateauesque works are almost always masonry, as the owner could usually afford it.
Chateauesque architecture declined beginning in the early 20th century, being replaced by Beaux-Arts architecture in a similar classical language.