ABSTRACT
SUMMARY: Bermudian buildings reveal a robust era of permanent house construction by the colony’s leaders c. 1700, followed by very modest and conservative expansion of accommodation in the second and third quarters of the 18th century, with little change to housing for domestic work and enslaved workers. Substantial rebuilding in the decades after the American Revolution reflects changing international standards as well as economic improvement born of the island’s increased strategic importance. A new generation of the elite employed neoclassical woodwork to ornament reception rooms and bedchambers, creating a degree of finish rare in their parents’ and grandparents’ houses. However, aspects of archaic building construction remained on the still-isolated island, and improvement for workers was clear but uneven.
