Century Homes and Their Window Styles: A Guide to Eastern Canada's Architectural Heritage

The window is rarely the first thing people mention when they describe a heritage building. But it is usually an easy indicator of what era the building came from.

Pane count, divided lite pattern, sash proportion, arched or square head, placement in the wall: these details accumulated over centuries of architectural convention, and they carry more information about a building's origins than almost any other element. When those windows are replaced with something that doesn't match the original language, the building loses something harder to name than a single feature.

Eastern Canada has a particularly rich and varied architectural heritage, shaped by French and British colonial traditions, the materials available in each region, and a succession of style movements imported from Europe and the American northeast. This guide covers the main styles found across the region, the window types originally associated with each, and what heritage window replacement in a century home requires to do them justice.

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Georgian and Colonial: The Foundation

Georgian architecture, which arrived with British settlement in the late 1700s and early 1800s, is the baseline for much of what followed in Atlantic Canada and Upper Canada. Its defining characteristic is rigorous symmetry: a central door flanked by evenly spaced windows, identical on every floor.

The windows in Georgian buildings are double-hung, typically tall and narrow, with multiple small panes divided by thin wooden muntins. The pane counts most associated with this period are 12/12 (twelve panes in each sash), 9/6, or 6/6, depending on the era and the builder's budget. Those small panes were a function of early glass-making technology: large sheets of flat glass were not yet widely available, so windows were assembled from smaller pieces held in a grid of wood.

In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, Georgian homes were typically wood-framed, often clad in clapboard or shingles, and painted white or cream. In areas with local stone, including parts of Nova Scotia and much of Upper Canada, Georgian buildings were sometimes built in limestone or sandstone, with windows set deep in thick masonry walls. For anyone replacing windows in a Georgian-era century home, matching the original pane count and maintaining the slim muntin profile are the most critical decisions.

Victorian: An Era of Architectural Variety

The Victorian period (roughly 1840 to 1910) brought a dramatic expansion in residential architectural styles, many of which arrived simultaneously through pattern books and pattern builders. Each substyle has a distinct window vocabulary.

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Italianate

One of the most common Victorian styles across Eastern Canada, Italianate buildings are characterized by tall, narrow windows with arched or bracketed hoods, often paired or grouped in twos and threes. Windows are double-hung with 2/2 panes or a single large pane per sash, reflecting improved glass technology by the mid-1800s. Elaborate hood mouldings and decorative brackets above the window heads are defining details. For heritage window replacement in an Italianate home, the arched head profile and proportions of the sash are the hardest elements to match in a standard product. Custom sizing is often necessary.

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Gothic Revival

Gothic Revival brought pointed arches into residential architecture, particularly on gable peaks and in dormer windows. The style is common in both Ontario and the Maritime provinces, often appearing in churches but also in the distinctive board-and-batten cottages associated with the American architect Andrew Jackson Downing. Windows in Gothic Revival homes often feature pointed arch heads, lancet shapes, or diamond-patterned panes in the upper sash.

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Queen Anne

Queen Anne homes are the most exuberant of the Victorian substyles, with varied window sizes, shapes, and placements across the facade. Bay windows, round-top windows, stained glass panels, and specialty-shaped openings all appear within a single building. The diversity is the point: Queen Anne architecture was deliberately asymmetrical and decorative, and its windows followed that logic.

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Second Empire and the Mansard Tradition: Quebec and Beyond

Second Empire architecture, named for the style that flourished under Napoleon III, is one of the most distinctive period styles in Quebec and was widely built across Ontario and Atlantic Canada as well. Its defining feature is the mansard roof: a double-pitched roof with dormer windows punching through the upper slope on all four sides of the building.

The windows in Second Empire buildings are typically tall double-hung units with 2/2 panes, set in pairs on the main floors. The mansard dormers are often arched or pedimented, with decorative surrounds. In Montreal and Quebec City, this style was executed in local limestone and brick, giving the buildings a solidity and formality that wood-framed versions in Atlantic Canada could not quite replicate.

Masonry Heritage: Greystone, Limestone, and Brick

The masonry heritage buildings of Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, and many Maritime downtowns represent a distinct category in any heritage window replacement conversation. These buildings were built to last centuries, and their window openings were structural decisions as much as aesthetic ones. Replacing windows in masonry walls requires a fundamentally different approach than replacing windows in wood-framed construction.

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Brownstone & Greystone

The brownstone and greystone rowhouses of Montreal neighbourhoods like Westmount, Outremont, and the Plateau are among the most recognizable residential buildings in Canadian architecture. Built largely from local grey limestone between 1880 and 1930, these homes feature tall, generous window openings with round-arch or flat-arch stone lintels. Original windows were double-hung with 2/2 or 1/1 panes, set in painted wood frames recessed into deep stone reveals. The stone surround is architecturally important: a replacement window that sits flush rather than recessed in the wall will read as wrong immediately.

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Limestone

Ottawa has their own distinct limestone tradition, using the pale buff-coloured limestone quarried locally. Georgian and early Victorian buildings in this region are often entirely limestone construction, with window openings that follow classical proportions: tall, symmetrically placed, with stone lintels and sills. Later commercial and institutional buildings in downtown Ottawa extend this vocabulary into Italianate and Romanesque Revival styles, with round-arch openings, rusticated stone, and deeply recessed window frames. Heritage window replacement for this building stock must account for the reveal depth as carefully as the sash profile.

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Downtown Brick: Commercial and Residential

Red and yellow brick construction is the defining material of Victorian-era downtown buildings across the Maritimes, Quebec & Ontario, including Toronto's iconic Gooderham Building, and Charlottetown's Victoria Row. Commercial buildings from this period often feature large round-arch windows on the upper floors above storefronts, with corbelled brick lintels and decorative brickwork at the window heads. Residential brick homes of the same era typically have segmental-arch window openings, double-hung sashes with 2/2 or 1/1 panes, and stone sills. The brick facade works with the window frame as a unified system: changing the frame profile or adding a casing that does not fit the masonry opening disrupts that relationship visibly.

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Maritime Vernacular: Saltbox, Foursquare and Traditional

Not every historic home in Atlantic Canada is a period-style showpiece. Much of the residential building stock, especially in smaller communities, fishing villages, and rural areas, is vernacular construction: practical, unpretentious, and shaped more by available materials and local climate than by architectural fashion.

The foursquare, common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, follows a similar pragmatism: square plan, hipped roof, evenly spaced double-hung windows, occasionally with a grouped triple window on the front.

The saltbox form, with its asymmetrical sloping roofline extending to the rear, is the most distinctive of these vernacular types. Windows in saltbox homes are typically simple 6/6 or 6/1 double-hung units, symmetrically placed on the main facade, with minimal ornament.

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Craftsman and the Early Twentieth Century

Craftsman bungalows arrived in Eastern Canada in the early 1900s, partly through the same pattern book culture that spread Victorian styles two generations earlier. The style is a deliberate reaction against Victorian ornamentation: low-pitched roofs, wide overhanging eaves, natural materials, and horizontal emphasis.

Craftsman windows reflect that emphasis. The characteristic pattern is a 6/1 double-hung (six small panes in the upper sash, single large pane below), often grouped in pairs or triples. Some Craftsman homes also feature a grid of small square panes in the upper sash only, a detail associated with the Prairie Style. Casement windows with divided lites also appear in Craftsman interiors, particularly in built-in cabinetry and interior transoms.

Matching Original Windows Today

Modern window manufacturing has reached a point where almost any historic profile, divided lite pattern, or specialty shape can be replicated in materials that outperform the originals on every performance dimension. The challenge is knowing what you are trying to replicate and working with manufacturers who understand the distinction.

For Georgian and Colonial double-hung windows, true divided lite (TDL) configurations with period-appropriate pane counts are available through the Marvin Ultimate Collection and through Norwood Windows and Doors custom wood program.

For Victorian arched and specialty shapes, Marvin's specialty shape program allows custom configurations to match original openings. For masonry applications specifically, the frame profile, reveal depth, and exterior casing detail all need to be specified carefully to fit the existing masonry opening without compromising the wall's appearance. This is work that benefits from a supplier who has done it before.

Heritage approval processes in Quebec and Ontario, and the guidelines issued by provincial and municipal heritage authorities across Atlantic Canada, increasingly require documentation showing that replacement windows match the original in profile, material, and configuration. The right product specification makes that documentation easier to support.

Ultimate Windows, Doors and More works with architects, restoration professionals, and homeowners on heritage window and door projects across Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI.

Get in touch to discuss your project.