In 1890, the city's first streetcars began operating on Grand Avenue, just south of Summit, and the Hill District became a fashionable place to live.

[9] [10] Frank Lloyd Wright, noted as "the greatest American architect of all time" by AIA, claimed that Summit Avenue is "the worst collection of architecture in the world.

"[11] This was in part due to the imposing scale of the buildings, but mainly because Summit Avenue architecture copied design styles from Europe, rather than attempting to find an original American aesthetic.

[13] However, perhaps the most characteristic example of Italianate architecture on Summit Avenue is the 1863 Burbank–Livingston–Griggs House, with its distinctive arched bay windows, bracketed cornice, and glass-enclosed cupola on the roof.

[15] Summit Avenue once possessed a very fine Second Empire style home, the Kittson Mansion, which occupied the spot of the current Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Instead, this style was fantastical in appearance featuring columns and pediments, peaked, high-pitched roofs, and profuse decorative elements such as dormer windows, gables, bays, porches, balconies, and turrets.

Summit Avenue’s lost 1882 Barnum House once exhibited a transition from the aforementioned Italianate style to that of the newer Queen Anne.

[15] Such medieval-inspired elements often include corner towers, steeply pitched roofs, and heavy arches around doorways and windows, making these buildings often resemble a medieval fortress.

Its architecture reflects the distinctive work of architect Henry Hobson Richardson whose style, though historically inspired, was very versatile and stressed utilitarianism, coherence, and greater simplicity.

Compared to the eclectic and rough Hill House it was much more in keeping with the picturesque movement and adhered more to historic European styles than American utilitarianism.

[13] The 1887 Rugg House is also Romanesque but not quite so simple with its horizontal dark-colored brickwork, peaked tile roof, and entrance arch decorated with carved sculptures.

[13] Those who built homes on Summit Avenue at the turn of the century wanted to exude a certain sense of culture, and employed the Beaux-Arts style based on an appreciation of the tradition of European architecture.

The Cathedral stands at one end of the Avenue, near the Hill House, and was designed by Emmanuel Masqueray, a former student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

[13] Its design was heavily modeled on the baroque St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City and follows the traditional Greek Cross floor plan with many baroque-inspired flourishes.

[13] In addition to houses inspired by classical and medieval buildings Summit Avenue also featured residences that drew on historically English styles such as the Georgian and Tudor.

[13] Summit’s Georgian Revival houses drew on inspiration from 18th-century English architecture and were characterized by red brick two-story symmetrical facades, with equal numbers of windows on each side and flat roofs decorated with balustrades.

[13] These Tudor elements often included decorative half-timbering, gables, prominent chimneys, patterned brickwork, and medieval-inspired steeply pitched roofs.

[13] At 807 Summit stands another Tudor-style residence, this one too with unusual brick and half-timbered stories and a distinctively unbalanced facade, in stark contrast to the symmetry of the Georgian Revival.

[13] The Dittenhofer house at 705 Summit exhibits a move towards the Rectilinear style in its symmetry and blockish shape but cannot escape historicism in its medieval-inspired elements such as Gothic-like arched windows that were once fitted with stained glass.

The Beebe House features no ornamentation but includes extended eaves and windows arranged in banked groups, elements also distinctive of the famous Prairie Style which was soon to become a variant of the Rectilinear.