COLOR
At first glance, the Village's gray foundations and slate roofs are complemented by its predominant brick red buildings and streets. But the Village's palette of color is much more diverse than this. A quick survey reveals colorful buildings as well as awnings, windows and doors.

Because color has such a significant visual impact, use colors appropriate to your building's age and style. Reinforcing the whole tone of the Village, most historic color schemes are fairly simple.

During each period in the Village's architectural history, architects and builders took advantage of the impact of color. Before 1870, they typically painted the small cottages and early Italianate buildings in light earth tones (grays, yellows, tans) as well as reds and browns. They also selected light earth tones as trim colors compatible with the natural brick-red walls of many of the buildings. Thus, the older cottages usually had a single trim color keyed either to the body color on a frame building, or to the natural brick color on a masonry building.

After 1870, Italianate commercial and residential architecture came into full bloom, adding noticeably darker colors to the Village's palette: greens, dark reds, oranges, and olives. Almost always, trim painted in a darker color complemented the lighter color of the house. Only rarely was this color scheme reversed. Usually eave brackets - the most common decorative feature at this time - were the same color as the cornices.

From about 1880 to 1900, highly ornamented buildings provided the opportunity for a more lively and imaginative use of color. Sometimes two or three colors were combined on a single building, but usually not more than three. The late 19th-century palette included pale yellow or light green on frame buildings with dark green or maroon trim. Some brick buildings also had dark green or maroon trim; others had brown or brown-red trim.

After 1900, architects generally moved away from the previous era's complexity and ornateness. Adopting plain, simple, classical forms, they chose lighter colors such as cream, yellow, and white.

Recommendations
1. Original paint colors for a building should be researched as a starting point for color selection. What combinations of colors were used; in which locations; and how many colors were there.

2. Most historic color schemes were fairly simple. The older cottages, for example, usually had a single trim color keyed either to the body color on a frame building, or to the natural brick color on a brick building. Even late 19th-century buildings typically had only two paint colors. Avoid using more than two colors.

3. In general, avoid painting surfaces that have never been painted. For example, stone lintels and sills, so common in the Village, should remain unpainted.