The Tile Top Ten

By Demetra Aposporos and Jane Powell

	Frank Lloyd Wright's wonderful, wacky Wingspread. Photo Credit: The Johnson Foundation

It was no easy task to narrow down our list of notable tile-roofed buildings to just 10 (there are a lot of amazing historic tile roofs out there!), but after much careful consideration, we proudly present our finalists, in no particular order.

Fonthill
The Bucks County, Pennsylvania, home of Henry Chapman Mercer, founder of the Moravian Pottery Works, is an astonishing piece of architecture Mercer dubbed a concrete castle for the New World, complete with tile-topped towers.

Mar-a-Lago
The Palm Beach, Florida, estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, built between 1924 and 1927, is an expansive tribute to Spanish style, with roof to match.

Santa Barbara County Courthouse
Built after the 1925 earthquake demolished its Greek Revival predecessor, the Spanish Castle-style courthouse was dedicated in 1929, and became a National Historic Landmark in 2005.

L.A.'s Union Station
Considered the last of the great railway stations built in the U.S., this Los Angeles landmark mixes the architecture of Mission and Dutch Colonial Revival styles with Streamline Moderne.

The Grove Park Inn
The undulating red clay tile roof of this Asheville, North Carolina, Arts & Crafts landmark is but one of its many memorable features.

Craftsman Farms
Gustav Stickley's log house in Parsippany, New Jersey, is an Arts & Crafts destination topped with a green flat tile roof.

The Robie House
Frank Lloyd Wright's quintessential Prairie house in Chicago, Illinois, built between 1908 and 1910, is topped by a roof of flat clay tiles.

The Coonley Estate
Another Wright vision, this Riverside, Illinois, house and stables—consisting of three separate buildings with overlapping roofs—are all topped in clay.

Wingspread
In perhaps Wright's wackiest roof treatment, the tiles on this Racine, Wisconsin, house scale towering heights in four tiered layers punctuated by ribbon windows.

The Acropolis
No tile list would be complete without this ancient building sitting high on a hill in Athens, Greece, a model for classically designed structures to this day.

Know of any important tile-roofed buildings we might have missed? Let us know at ohjeditorial@homebuyerpubs.com.

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