The style that brings a smile

By Colin W. Sargent

As a decorating motif, Swiss chalets may be among the earliest examples of nostalgic irony in American architecture.

Just add cocoa and marshmallows. Wildly popular to this day, these storybook structures offer not just shelter but true (as opposed to false) whimsy to the woods, lakes, and hills of Maine.   

Pre-Colonial Revival   

Heidi’s grandfather’s prototype may go back 700 years in the European Alps, but the Swiss chalet in the U.S. was first popularized by landscape architecture pioneer Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852) of Newburgh, New York, who included a Swiss chalet design with overhangs, wide eaves, large carved brackets, and gingerbread in his 1850 dream book The Architecture of  Country Houses.

We searched on Zillow. There’s no category for antebellum Swiss chalets, but we do have a more recent charmer from the Carrabassett Valley sweet enough to warm your cocoa and ignite a blaze in its own fireplace.

Read the full story in the digital magazine above.