"Painted ladies" is a term used for Victorian and Edwardian houses and buildings painted in three or more colors that embellish or enhance their architectural details. The term was first used for San Francisco Victorian houses by writers Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their 1978 book Painted Ladies - San Francisco's Resplendent Victorians. Since then the term has also been used to describe groups of colorful Victorian houses in other American cities, such as the Charles Village neighborhood in Baltimore, Lafayette Square in St. Louis, Missouri, the greater San Francisco and New Orleans areas, Columbia-Tusculum in Cincinnati and the city of Cape May, New Jersey.
Some preservationists use the term polychrome for the style.
Read more about Painted Ladies: San Francisco's Painted Ladies
Famous quotes containing the words painted and/or ladies:
“Arthur was very small.
He was all white, like a doll
that hadn’t been painted yet.”
—Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979)
“It was not exactly a hairdresser’s; that is to say, people of a coarse and vulgar turn of mind might have called it a barber’s; for they not only cut and curled ladies elegantly, and children carefully, but shaved gentlemen easily.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)