The Dorset House

Often considered the first national style, Greek Revival architecture became so pervasive in the United States in part because regional architects could access the classical idiom through publications such as Stuart & Revett's Antiquities of Athens[3] and Asher Benjamin's 1797 pattern book The Country Builder's Companion.

In combining the two cross-gabled flanking wings with the massive corniced façade, Allen achieved the classical balance and symmetry characteristic of the Greek Revival style.

Following the American Civil War, improved transpiration systems, more advanced weapons, and abundant game combined to create what has been called the greatest wildfowl hunt in history of the world.

It contains superb examples by master craftsmen from all over North America, including an Elmer Crowell—whose wide variety of working decoys, decorative carvings and miniatures prove him to be the most versatile of the old-time masters—and such well-known carvers as Bill Bowman, Lee Dudley, Nathan Cobb, Lem Ward, Steve Ward, Joseph Lincoln, Albert Laing, Shang Wheeler, George Warin and John Blair.

Other regional styles, including those of Louisiana, Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay, New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut, Quebec and Ontario, are equally distinctive.

He offered his customers what he called a "songless aviary", producing miniature songbirds, shorebirds, and ducks insets of 25 species and also creating many life-sized decorative carvings of birds and fish.

A wide variety of Crowell's work, including a heron used as a garden ornament, several wall-mounted flying birds and nearly a hundred miniatures, is exhibited in the Dorset House.