Historical Background

The stucco on the early-19th century Richardson-Owens-Thomas House in Savannah, Georgia, is a type of natural cement. Photo: NPS files.

Stucco has been used since ancient times. Still widely used throughout the world, it is one of the most common of traditional building materials. Up until the late 1800's, stucco, like mortar, was primarily lime-based, but the popularization of portland cement changed the composition of stucco, as well as mortar, to a harder material. Historically, the term "plaster" has often been interchangeable with "stucco"; the term is still favored by many, particularly when referring to the traditional lime-based coating. By the nineteenth century "stucco," although originally denoting fine interior ornamental plasterwork, had gained wide acceptance in the United States to describe exterior plastering. "Render" and "rendering" are also terms used to describe stucco, especially in Great Britain. Other historic treatments and coatings related to stucco in that they consist at least in part of a similarly plastic or malleable material include: parging and pargeting, wattle and daub, "cob" or chalk mud, pise de terre, rammed earth, briquete entre poteaux or bousillage, half-timbering, and adobe. All of these are regional variations on traditional mixtures of mud, clay, lime, chalk, cement, gravel or straw. Many are still used today.

The Stucco Tradition in the United States

Stucco is primarily used on residential buildings and relatively small-scale commercial structures. Some of the earliest stucco buildings in the United States include examples of the Federal, Greek and Gothic Revival styles of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries that emulated European architectural fashions. Benjamin Henry Latrobe, appointed by Thomas Jefferson as Surveyor of Public Buildings of the United States in 1803, was responsible for the design of a number of important stucco buildings, including St. John's Church (1816), in Washington, D.C.

The stucco finish on Arlington House, Arlington, Virginia, was marbleized in the 1850s, approximately 30 years after it was built. Photo: NPS files.

Revival Styles Promote Use of Stucco

The introduction of the many revival styles of architecture around the turn of the twentieth century, combined with the improvement and increased availability of portland cement resulted in a "craze" for stucco as a building material in the United States. Beginning about 1890 and gaining momentum into the 1930s and 1940s, stucco was associated with certain historic architectural styles, including: Prairie; Art Deco, and Art Moderne; Spanish Colonial, Mission, Pueblo, Mediterranean, English Cotswold Cottage, and Tudor Revival styles; as well as the ubiquitous bungalow and "four-square" house. The fad for Spanish Colonial Revival, and other variations on this theme, was especially important in furthering stucco as a building material in the United States during this period, since stucco clearly looked like adobe.

Although stucco buildings were especially prevalent in California, the Southwest and Florida, ostensibly because of their Spanish heritage, this period also spawned stucco-coated, revival-style buildings all over the United States and Canada. The popularity of stucco as a cheap, and readily available material meant that by the 1920s, it was used for an increasing variety of building types. Resort hotels, apartment buildings, private mansions and movie theaters, railroad stations, and even gas stations and tourist courts took advantage of the "romance" of period styles, and adopted the stucco construction that had become synonymous with these styles.