Saltbox Style Roof

With its asymmetrical roof and restrained facade the saltbox house has become an icon of new england s coastal areas.

Saltbox style roof. A saltbox has just one story in the back and two stories in the front. In its simplest form a saltbox roof is a gable roof with asymmetrical planes one long and one short side. A salt box house defining feature is its roof. Now you will see this type of rooftop design on garages sheds and outbuildings rather than on homes.

When colonial era families first developed the style though they weren t aiming for aesthetic appeal. On a two story home the long side may span the height from the ridge to edge which can be one long roofing plane or divided into two. The short side typically has a low slope while the long side has a steep slope. Salt box roofs feel like a painted gable style roof with two sides of a central ridge sloping outwards.

The saltbox architectural style was born as an adaptation to the harsh realities of early colonial life. A saltbox roof is a design that was used extensively in the colonial era. Rather of sloping to the same degree one side includes the entire route to the house s first floor. However instead of sloping to the same length one side reaches all the way to the first.

Today there are not a lot of newly constructed homes that have this type of roof design.