Bermuda Houses

by John S. Humphreys

This form of building on a slope gives rise to another feature of many of the older houses, namely, the long flight of exterior steps, connecting the living floor with the lower ground level. These have brick risers and treads and substantial stone parapets with the landing at the top sometimes expanded to form a small terrace, or more rarely a covered veranda. These steps are as a rule much wider at the bottom than the top, with consequent diverging railing or parapet wall. On the landing itself, the walls have frequently an outward slant, giving a peculiar, tub-like effect. This stairway, or "stoop," as it would be called in some parts of America, with the outstretching sidewalls is known in Bermuda as "Welcoming Arms," significant of Bermudian hospitality.

Another frequent feature was the projecting vestibule or waiting room in many of the houses of early date. This was a small room, square or half octagon in plan, that stood open to the visitor at all times, for shelter from sun and rain. The door from this to the rest of the house was the occupant's protection from intrusion. This room is said to have been furnished with chairs and table, and a hand bell, with which the caller announced his presence.

The infrequency of verandas or other roofed-over outdoor space is noticeable to the visitor from America, to whom this seems a very modest luxury, if not a necessity for ordinary comfort. In many cases where verandas now exist, they are additions to the house as first built. The original occupant and builder of these houses found indoors cooler and more comfortable in hot weather than any veranda, as screening against insects was then unknown. If he preferred outdoors, the shade of a tree or the north side of the house was sufficient. The sunshine was welcome in the winter to warm and dry the house, and in summer the prevailing wind was from the south and equally desirable. Many of the houses of the nineteenth century have verandas screened by shutters or lattice, some two-story ones. These are more common perhaps in the towns, where the houses were more crowded and the shade trees fewer. They seem more tropical or West Indian in character than the earlier houses, peculiarly Bermudian, and have a quite different interest. A few are shown in the photographs.

Bermuda from its earliest history as a proprietary settlement by the Virginia Company, throughout its development to its present condition as a self-governing Colony, has been uninterruptedly English. What tradition there is that has been an influence in its buildings is English. Some of the waved and stepped gable ends suggest at first sight a contact with Spanish America, but similar forms of gables in the domestic architecture of England, adapted to Bermudian materials, might well have produced the same result.

Though known to exist by the Spaniards before the English settled there, it was never occupied by them, and there seems no warrant for assuming there was Spanish influence at any time in the Islands.

Slave labor, cheap and plentiful, but unskilled, seems also to have been a contributory influence in the older houses, both in their planning and building and still more markedly in road building. Deep cuts through rock, and extensive building of substantial walls, that in the present day would be out of proportion in cost for the advantage gained, are frequent. Even the more modest smaller houses, with their dependent outhouses, butteries and garden walls, all in massive masonry, create an appearance of permanence and solidity, that is striking to one accustomed to the flimsier frame construction so common in modern America.

Through the general mechanical progress of the world and particularly through modern means of transportation and consequent contact with the outside world, Bermuda has no longer its isolation, and has lost perhaps much that was picturesque and interesting in the life that formerly existed there, and which naturally and without conscious effort had its expression and reflection in the architecture of its dwellings.

Other activities have replaced the largely seafaring life that many of the old Bermudians followed and the agriculture though important has changed its character. Small farms have replaced the larger plantations, and Bermuda exports to northern markets, vegetables, potatoes and onions chiefly, and imports for its own use fruit and other foods formerly produced on the Island.

A new and important source of revenue, the tourist trade, has sprung up, has made great strides in the last years and is still increasing. Great and ugly hotels have been built to accommodate the thousands of visitors and more hotels are in prospect. The climate and the sea are inherent assets and attractions of Bermuda, which may not be changed, but there are other things perhaps less obvious that help to draw people there, which Bermuda alone possesses. Among these and not the least, is Bermuda's own architecture; the little white houses that fit so well in the landscape, and which appeal to the imagination with suggestions of a life apart from the rest of the world, one in which peace and ease replace the confusion and strenuousness of the more energetic North.

The number of regular winter residents is increasing, both those who have acquired property and those who annually rent houses. Some of these have adapted and altered older houses to modern needs, and in the changes made have kept to the spirit of Bermuda with no loss of material comfort. In other houses one sees changes made with little thought or care for appearances; iron tanks perched on roofs in conspicuous places, very much exposed plumbing, and corrugated iron roofs, are hard to ignore, Some of the newer houses are commonplace and vulgar, and impair the island's richness in beauty in direct proportion to their frequency; still others, large, pretentious, exotic in style, and out of keeping with all that makes for charm in Bermuda, are a positive detriment not only to their Vicinity but to Bermuda as a whole.