Bermuda’s Architecture

Written by Mr. Bill DeGrace

To 1750 | 18th & 19th Centuries | 20th Century | Looking Forward

Visitors to Bermuda in 2009 will discover what our people already know: our culture, in particular the visual and creative arts, has many dimensions. When it comes to architecture and the built environment, there is an oft-repeated saying that our buildings are our “one true indigenous art form”. We hope that the following story of Bermuda’s built heritage and its unique pattern of building will help to illustrate this point.

The beginnings to 1750

Bermuda’s first known inhabitants, those arriving in the early 1600s, relied on the skills they brought from their home territory. Available materials were wood (a unique juniper known as Bermuda Cedar), leaves of the palmetto tree, and stone. Unfamiliar with the climate and the way these materials worked, early builders would have had to use trial and error to adapt their craft.

On the basis of archaeological evidence, we know that the earliest buildings were constructed of timber and thatched, or were timber-frame infilled with twigs and clay in the English tradition. Houses were situated in valleys, on the leeward side of hills or within safe inlets as protection from tropical storms. Eventually, masonry buildings in soft Bermuda sandstone became prevalent. The earliest stone houses often utilized semi-basements cut into bedrock, making them appear to “grow” naturally out of the land. By the mid 1700s, with timber increasingly valued for a thriving shipbuilding industry, stone became the building material of choice. In addition to soft Bermuda sandstone, there are deposits of hard limestone. In this material, utility was found in the making of lime and in the construction of Bermuda’s fortifications and greater buildings.

Local conditions heavily influenced the earliest stone houses and established the characteristics of the Bermuda vernacular – the customs and conventions in Bermuda building – that exist even today. The lack of potable water sources entailed the need to collect rainwater from roofs and channel it to below-ground water storage tanks. Roofs, fashioned in thin-cut stone (“Bermuda slate”) over rafter-and-purlin timber frames, resulted in the distinctive stepped roof pattern you will see everywhere on the Island. The roof structure, which ended in “rafter feet” (an extension of the roof to accept the lowest slates) rested on quarried- stone walls, bonded with lime mortar and lime-washed.

In these houses, elements of style were not predominant. Windows and doors, found high under the eaves for added protection, were placed as needed to reflect the interior room arrangement. An outside staircase, often called “welcoming arms” steps, would lead to the living space, which was often on an upper level with storage below. Buttresses were sometimes also employed to accept the weight and thrust of the roof. End chimneys would complete the composition. The Carter House (St. David’s), the ‘Old Rectory’ (Town of St. George) and ‘Palmetto House’ (Devonshire) are among many survivors of this early period.

Back to top

Settlement, trade, and post-emancipation: the 18th and 19th centuries

By the second half the 1700s, Bermuda’s stone-building tradition was commonplace. Skills in the various building trades were refined, materials – for example plate glass and exotic woods from the West Indies – were more readily available, and interpretations of style began to show themselves in larger and more prominent homes of the merchant class who were benefiting from Bermuda’s role in North Atlantic trade.

Heavily influenced by English Georgian great-house design, these larger homes were often symmetrical in their front elevation and plan, with evenly-spaced windows and high ceilings. Classical details, including decorative quoins, corner piers, lintels and fan-lights were common characteristics. Usually “double pile” (two rooms deep in size), these homes presented an image of prosperity and wealth, and they were often sited in prominent places to signal the owner’s status in society. You will find these houses all over Bermuda, but especially in Paget and Pembroke parishes, which contain such landmarks and ‘Bloomfield’ and ‘Clermont’. A very special precursor to this phenomenon is ‘Verdmont’, Smith’s, which is open to the public.

In due course, the stylistic influence of English Georgian found its way into the Bermuda vernacular. Social and economic change after emancipation (1834) resulted in rapid small-house development and the appearance of many of these same elements in smaller buildings. In addition, the verandah was introduced at this time by British garrisons in their military buildings and began to be adopted as a practical exterior feature throughout the Island.

Massing, form, and detailing from later Victorian and Edwardian styles, popular in England and North America, were translated in a unique Bermudian manner to great effect in such houses as ‘Aldie’ in Smith’s (which recalls the Queen Anne Revival), in ‘Highwood’, Paget (a baronial Gothic essay in Bermuda stone struck to resemble Scottish granite), and in ‘Bridge Lodge’, Sandys, with its bay windows and “gingerbread” detailing. These and many other buildings of the period attest to the increasing sophistication and artistry shared by Bermuda’s architects, builders and craftspeople of the day.

Back to top

20th century Bermuda: the vernacular revival and modern times

Increasing tourism and leisure opportunities in the 1900s brought a renewed interest in the Bermuda vernacular. From the close of the First World War and into the 1930s, new houses built for Bermudians, and for the increasing numbers of seasonal vacationers from overseas, began to imitate old Bermuda cottages. Ever mindful of form and detailing, newly trained Bermudian architects successfully repeated the charm and simplicity of old Bermuda cottages in new signature pieces. ‘Buttonwood’ in Tucker’s Town and ‘Coral Chimneys’, Paget, are two of many 20th century cottages that have integrated into their associated landscape as if on that location for more than a hundred years. Others like ‘Ferry Reach’, St. George’s, and ‘Widdrington’, Pembroke, illustrate how the Bermuda idiom and the arts and crafts fashion found elsewhere were successfully blended. Additionally, among the buildings starting to appear at this time are wooden (normally clapboard) houses based, in part, on the wooden building tradition brought by immigrants from St. Kitts and Nevis.

In the period of exponential development and change that occurred everywhere after the Second World War, our builders took advantage of the wide variety of imported materials to construct infill housing and multiple unit dwellings to meet the demands of a growing population. To a large extent, these buildings incorporated traditional form, but often contained non-traditional materials and decorative detail that had not hitherto been part of the Bermuda idiom. At the same time, new buildings – especially office buildings in Hamilton – appeared as expressions of the modern movements, with their attention to glass and curtain-wall design and in their outward expression of exterior structure.

Back to top

Looking forward

As we look to our fifth century, many of our architects, builders and craftspeople continue to revere the Bermuda vernacular and seek to replicate traditional building form with considerable accuracy and due attention to the finer details. Others find new ways to merge old and new patterns of building as a reflection of world-wide postmodernism with results that can be strikingly different, as in two Hamilton neighbours, XL and ACE, and in contemporary houses like ‘Vertigo’ in Tucker’s Town. Given the ever-increasing shortage of available land and concerns over the impact of built form on the landscape, the expression of Bermuda’s sense of place and continuity will likely be a central theme in architecture for years to come.

Back to top

• Building Features
• St. Georges
• Hamilton
• Royal Naval Dockyard
• Forts
• Places of Worship
• Related Reading

{right}