I-house

The I-house is a vernacular house type, popular in the United States from the colonial period onward.

The I-house was so named in the 1930s by Fred Kniffen, a cultural geographer at Louisiana State University who was a specialist in folk architecture.

[1][2][3] He chose the name "I-house" because the style was commonly built in the rural farm areas of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, all states beginning with the letter "I".

It became a popular house form in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern United States at an early date,[5] but can be found throughout most of the country in areas that were settled by the mid-19th century.

It is especially prevalent through the culturally mixed midland, an area through central Pennsylvania and through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois (or approximate to the old National Road, and now paralleled by Interstate 70).

Marshall classifies folk houses by type using rules developed by Henry Glassie in the late 20th century.

In the South a variation of the I-house, with one-story, rear shed rooms and usually a full-width front porch, is often referred to as the Plantation Plain house type.