While the US is a relatively young country in terms of architecture, there’s a range of different styles that give us an insight into its history and culture.

From the ancient dwellings of New Mexico’s Pueblo Acomo that have been inhabited since the 12th century to the log cabins built by the country’s early pioneers and the colonial houses of New England, click or scroll to discover the oldest homes in every state of America and an insight into the people that built them.

Built between 1808 and 1810, the Joel Eddins House, near present-day Ardmore in Limestone County, is the oldest house in Alabama. 

Built in a hall-and-parlour style, the home was constructed by settler and master craftsman, Joel Eddins, with an exterior of solid chinked logs and wrought hand-hammered rosewood nails. The home sits on stone piers and features two stone-clad brick chimneys. 

The house was moved from its original location to living history museum Burritt on the Mountain, in Huntsville, Alabama, where it stands today. 

In keeping with the traditional British-style home adopted by early settlers, the main entry opens onto a larger 'hall' room, which contains a fireplace as well as a door to the 'parlour'. The house is open to the public and allows visitors to see how people lived during the 19th century.

Built around 1808, Erskine House is now home to the Kodiak History Museum, also known as the Baranov Museum. It is the first permanent Russian settlement in North America, when Alaska was Russian territory, and is the oldest documented log structure on the west coast.

The Kodiak area, part of a community established by Russian settlers in 1793, was once known as Pavlovsk.

The museum exhibits objects to share and protect the history of Kodiak Island, occasionally hosting cultural events like performances by the Russian Balalaika Players.

Its name derives from businessman WJ Erskine, who purchased the property in 1911 and converted it into a private residence. It later became a boarding house before being proclaimed a National Historic Landmark in 1962. 

Dated to 1300AD, these Navajo cliff dwellings are a National Monument within the Navajo Nation territory in Kayenta Arizona. Three well-preserved houses of the Ancestral Puebloan people – Keet Seel (Broken Pottery), Betatakin (Ledge House) and Inscription House – are on a site high up on the Shonto Plateau, overlooking a canyon system.

The structures, built into the natural sandstone alcoves caused by flowing spring water, are constructed of sandstone blocks plastered together with mud and mortar. The homes also use Jacal walls, which are walls made from a screen of upright wooden poles plastered together with mud. The area also features a visitor centre with a museum, three short self-guided trails, two small campgrounds and a picnic area. 

These cliff dwellings display a region-wide trend towards close, highly defensible homes. Some architectural details include Kivas (circular towers) and pit houses (homes built into the ground for shelter), which helped to fit more living quarters into a small space so communities could grow but stay tightly knit.

However, this also meant that the place was densely populated. At its peak, Keet Seel had more than 150 rooms and six kivas, while Betatakin had about 120 rooms and one kiva.

Located just off the White River in Norfork, the Jacob Wolf House was built in 1829 and is the oldest house and public structure in the state of Arkansas.

Constructed with yellow pine logs using a dovetail joining method and very few nails, it has survived wars, floods, fires and neglect, and is the last remaining two-storey, dogtrot-style public structure in the US. It currently operates as a museum that showcases the life and culture of the early settlers of Arkansas.

Built by trader and legislator Jacob Wolf, it was intended to be a home for his large family. However, the ground floor of the property also served as the courthouse of Izard County and witnessed many important events, including court sessions and elections, in the early days of the state.

Wolf helped shape the development of the region and later donated land for the construction of the courthouse, renaming the town Liberty.

While the oldest house still standing in California is thought to be the Pablo Pryor Adobe, it remains a private property and cannot be visited.

Luís María Peralta Adobe was constructed soon after however in 1797, by Manuel González, an Apache Indian who lived and died here in 1804 and was one of the founders of the Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe, the first municipal government in California, which was established in 1777. 

It was Luís María Peralta, a sergeant in the Spanish Army and commissioner of San José however, who inherited the property in 1808, and gave his name to the two-room house, which covers an area of just 20 feet by 41 feet, and has two-foot-wide walls. Peralta built a porch, a kitchen and a chimney and left the adobe to his two daughters when he died in 1851.

It was purchased by the city of San José in 1966 and is now open to the public.

While there are ancient cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde National Park and the Canyon of the Ancients, Four Mile House in Denver is generally considered the oldest frame house in the state of Colorado.

Standing tall since 1859, it was the last stop on the Cherokee Trail for pioneers heading west. Situated four miles from the centre of Denver itself, hence the name, it became a beacon of hope for those seeking new beginnings. 

Now a museum and a treasure trove of history, it was built by the enterprising Brantner brothers, Samuel and Jonas, who were among the many risk-takers of the era drawn to the West during the Gold Rush.

Built from sturdy, hand-hewn logs designed to withstand the cold Colorado climate, Four Mile House became a hallowed homestead where travellers could rest and replenish before reaching Denver and new opportunities. 

Purportedly the oldest stone house in America as well as the oldest house in Connecticut, the Henry Whitfield House was built in 1639, for Henry Whitfield, a Protestant minister who fled persecution in England. 

It was the first house to be built after the arrival of the Guildford colony settlers, and was constructed from stone carted from a nearby quarry, reportedly with the aid of the local native Menunkatuck people.

As well as being a home for Whitfield, his wife Dorothy and their nine children, it served as a place of worship before the town’s church was constructed. 

Modelled on the traditional architecture of Northern English and Scottish estates, it was also a meeting house and a prospective fort in case of an attack on the colony. It now operates as the Henry Whitfield State Museum.

Built by Dutch settlers in the small town of Lewes in 1665, Ryves Holt House is the oldest surviving house in Delaware still standing on its original foundation. It is thought to have been constructed 30 years after the destruction of the Zwaanendael colony, the state’s first settlement.

The wooden structure was originally constructed as a two-bedroom tavern and inn and run by Quaker, Philip Russell, said to be a ‘cupbearer', a high-ranking officer, to William Penn, who was granted rights to the area and named the town Lewes in 1682.

Despite being made of wood, the house survived the Lord Baltimore raids, which eventually gave the English control of the area, as well as several remodels, before it was sold in 1721 to Ryves Holt, the first Chief Justice of Sussex, from whom the building took its name. 

Later additions resulted in the unevenly grouped windows. In 2014, the Ryves Holt House was added to the First State National Historic Park and houses the Lewes Historical Society Visitor Center and Museum Gift Shop. 

Delaware was the first colony to ratify the US Constitution, and by doing so, became the first state.

To avoid any confusion, the Gonzalez-Alvarez House is also known as the The Oldest House, thus confirming its claim to being the oldest house in Florida.

Located in St Augustine, which was founded in 1565, work started on the single storey stone dwelling in 1702. The walls were constructed of coquina, a soft stone made entirely of broken shells. 

Its first resident, Tomás González y Hernández, lived in the house for 40 years before moving to Cuba with his family in 1763. Its second resident, a wealthy British soldier, Sergeant-Major Peavett added a second storey with a wooden frame. It was Spaniard Gerónimo Alvarez, however, who made additional changes that brought it to its present classic Spanish style and form. 

The house was acquired by the St Augustine Historical Society in 1918, and it is now open to the public. It became a National Registered Landmark in 1970.

Located in the Deep South on Jekyll Island, Horton House, also known as Horton-duBignon House, was built in 1743 and is the oldest house in the state of Georgia. Though sadly now in ruins, it was in its day a two-storey home on a working plantation.

Constructed of tabby, a concrete made from the lime of burnt oyster shells mixed with ash, water and sand, it is considered a good example of coastal Georgia building techniques. 

Major William Horton was given Jekyll Island in 1735 and built another house on the island which was destroyed by the Spanish before constructing Horton House. He established a plantation on the island where he grew rye and hops, and even established Georgia’s first brewery on his land.

After the American Revolution, Christophe Poulain du Bignon acquired the property and made additions to the building. Several of his family are buried in the cemetery nearby.

Those early settlers certainly didn’t do things by halves! The oldest surviving wooden house in Hawaii was built from pre-cut timbers shipped all the way around Cape Horn from Boston, Massachusetts, for the missionaries who had arrived on the island the year before.

Historically known as the Honolulu Mission Station, it is locally called Ka Hale La’au, “the wood house”. It was erected in 1821 and used by the New England Protestant missionaries as a mission house until 1862, housing five families and serving as a schoolhouse and dining hall.

It was then inhabited by the Cooke family, who gifted it to the Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society and it has been an historic site since 1907.

Today the old house, a cemetery, the 1831 Chamberlain House, the 1841 Bedroom Annex or Printing House and Hale Pili o Nā Mikanele, which is a reconstruction of the original 1823 grass house in missionary style, are part of the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives and can be visited by the public.

The John A O'Farrell Cabin (1863) in Boise, Idaho, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The cabin is one of the first residences in Boise and the location of the first Catholic services there.

While indigenous people had built semi-permanent homes in the area for thousands of years, the O’Farrell Cabin, built in 1863 by the Irish adventurer and miner O'Farrell, is the earliest surviving family home in the state of Idaho.

The Mission of the Sacred Heart in Cataldo was constructed earlier, between 1850 and 1853, but its parish house only dates back to 1887, according to reports.

Irish immigrants Mary Ann Chapman and John O’Farrell, who had been part of the Californian Gold Rush in 1849, travelled in a convoy of 14 wagons before setting up home on a segment of the Oregon Trail, according to records, attracted by the silver, copper and gold mining in the state. 

The 200-square-foot one-room cabin was constructed from cottonwood logs and home to the couple and their five children and seven adopted children until the family moved into a large brick house in 1892. In 1910 the children gifted the log house to the Daughters of the American Revolution. It now belongs to the City of Boise and considered the first place of Catholic worship in the city.

Despite its name, Old Cahokia Courthouse started out as the four-room private residence of Jean François-Poncet and was acquired by Jean Francois Saucier from his first wife’s family as her dowry.

Originally constructed in 1740, it is the state’s oldest dwelling and a unique remnant of the French occupation of the mid-Mississippi Valley. The post-on-sill, or poteaux-sur-sol, structure consists of upright hewn logs seated in a horizontal sill log, and is an excellent example of French colonial-era timber construction, which French settlers brought over from their native Normandy in northern France.

Saucier, whose father had designed the Fort de Chartres, often referred to as the oldest building in Illinois, sold the house for $1,000 (£790), equivalent today to $118,000 (£94k) and it became the Cahokia Courthouse in 1793. For 24 years it served as a centre of judicial and political activity in the Old Northwest Territory.

It was dismantled in 1901 to be exhibited at the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair before finally being reconstructed on its original site and has housed a public museum since 1940.

The former home of ninth President of the United States, William Henry Harrison lived at Grouseland in Vincennes, Indiana, from 1804 to 1812. The then Governor of Indiana commissioned architect William Lindsay to build the stately Federal-style mansion, which was completed in 1804, and no doubt gave stature to the young politician who was still in his twenties at the time.

It was the first brick house built in the entire Indiana Territory and had three storeys, 13 fireplaces and 26 rooms. Because of the threat of attack by Native Americans, the walls of Grouseland, named by Harrison due to the overabundance of the game birds in the area, were thick, much like those of a Medieval fortress, records state.

The lavish style of the interior was reminiscent of the Virginia mansions where Harrison grew up, and much of the home’s furnishings were imported from Europe, including pieces of Wedgewood china. 

After Harrison left in 1812, Judge Benjamin Parke resided here followed by Harrison’s son, John, who was the father of Benjamin Harrison, and became the 23rd US president. 

By 1850, however, Grouseland was no longer in the hands of the family and was used as a library, hotel and even a granary, before being turned into a museum in 1911.

While the Toolesboro Mounds are the most ancient Native American site in Iowa, the Louis Arriandeaux Log House is probably the oldest standing home. Built around 1827 by a French fur trader from Canada, it was originally windowless and a chimney was added at a later date.

The cabin has relocated several times and today stands in its third location at the Mathias Ham Historic Site, with public and private tours available.

The cabin is thought to be the first permanent log house during white settlement and sits alongside several other structures at the site which provide an insight into early pioneer life in the area.

The lead mining badger holes highlight one of the early industries of Dubuque, while the one-room Humke Schoolhouse, illustrates the challenge of educating a rural community at the time.

While Fangro House in Shawnee, which was constructed with sun-baked hand-pressed bricks in 1824, is officially the oldest house in Kansas, the Rookery in Fort Leavenworth is the oldest continually occupied residence in the state.

Built in 1834, it was created to serve as housing for unmarried frontier military men, who protected wagon trains, full of supplies and settlers, on their way out West beyond the Mississippi River. 

It was also home to the first governor of the Kansas territory, Andrew Reeder.

The Rookery is also known as the most haunted house in Kansas. People who have spent time in the property report the slamming of doors, misplacement of objects and flickering lights.

Of several ghosts who are said to haunt the house, the most well-known is that of a woman with long hair who claws, screams and rushes at people in a violent manner and is said to have been the victim of violence a long time ago. 

While the Old Talbott Tavern in Bardstown is the oldest building in Kentucky (said to be haunted by outlaw Jesse James), Adam Rankin House, built in Lexington in 1784, is the oldest house.

Originally built as a log cabin for local minister Adam Rankin, a frame addition was added a few years later and it is now covered with a clapboard exterior. The controversial minister and slaveholder was known for his inflammatory Presbyterian views and tried to ban original music being sung in church.

The property was moved from its original site in 1971 to avoid being demolished. It housed the Lexington History Museum and was listed for just shy of $600,000 (£473K) in 2023. The cast iron kettle in the fireplace reminds us of its history but the house has been updated to suit modern living.

Other notable residents included astronomer Samuel McCullough and Nathan Burrowes, whose famous Lexington Mustard was popular across the world, including with Queen Victoria.

In a state dotted with plantation houses and estates, it’s no surprise to hear that the oldest home in the Louisiana is a quintessential example of French colonial architecture complete with flamboyant balconies and verandas. 

Parlange Plantation house was built on 10,000 acres of land overlooking the False River in 1750. Vincent de Ternant, Marquis de Dansville-sur-Meuse, obtained the land through a French land grant, but died just seven years later. His son, Claude, who changed the cash crop from indigo to sugar cane and cotton, died in 1818, and the property was inherited by his widow, Virginie, who later remarried Charles Parlange, from whom the estate took its name.

A gallery encircles the property on each floor, imbuing it with Southern charm, and at one time cedars would have lined the driveway. There were 35 slave houses for 129 enslaved people in 1860, though none survive.

The story goes that when the strong-willed Virginie heard the Union Army were approaching to take over the house during the Civil War, she ordered enslaved people to take three chests of gold and silver coins worth an estimated-half-a-million dollars, which would be approximately $48 million (£38m) in today’s money, and bury them on the property.  Rumour has it the third chest is yet to be found. No wonder her descendants still occupy the historic home!

Once a colonial log garrison to defend settlers against the attacks by Native Americans, the McIntire Garrison House in York was built around 1707. It was believed to have been constructed in 1645, but architectural experts suggest this is unlikely because the building techniques employed were not adopted until the early 18th century. Yet it is still the oldest house in the state of Maine.

The two-storey gable-roofed structure, which is now covered in clapboard and shingle, was constructed with sawn logs that were carefully dovetailed at the corners to assure weathertight and solid joints, according to National Park Service documents. 

The interior of the house remains largely unchanged from its original condition, with stark unfinished wooden floors and panelling, and open structural ceilings.

The house was according to reports, probably built by one of Micum McIntire’s sons: John, Daniel or Micum Junior. Their father was a Scottish Highlander, who was deported to America by Oliver Cromwell after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. The prisoners were shipped to Charlestown, where Micum is thought to have worked off his indenture for another seven years before buying his own land in York, documents confirm.

Robert Brooke Senior built Brooke Place Manor in 1652, which was the same year he became acting Governor of Maryland. It is the oldest surviving brick house in the state.

Although it was enlarged and modified significantly in the 1840s, it still sits on 100 acres of the original 8,000 acres granted to Brooke by the Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore and first proprietor of Maryland. According to records, Brooke emigrated to Maryland with his second wife, ten children and 28 servants. 

Prior to the construction of Brooke Place Manor, Brooke had established his seat at De Le Brooke Manor, in the Patuxent River vicinity. He later moved across the river to St Leonard, where Brooke Place Manor stands, a near duplicate of his first house.

De Le Brooke Manor was torn down in 1838, but a similar building was constructed in its place, seen here in a photograph from 1936.

Not just the oldest surviving timber-frame house in Massachusetts, the Fairbanks House in Dedham is the oldest known wooden structure in North America.

Built by Puritan settler Jonathan Fairbanks and his wife Grace in 1637, it was occupied for eight generations until the early 20th century. It is owned and operated as a house museum by the Fairbanks Family in America a non-profit organisation.

Originally from Yorkshire, Jonathan Fairbanks acquired land outside Boston, where he intended to build a new life for his family. The two-storey dwelling was encased in oak and cedar cladding with a gabled roof and a central chimney.  Additions have more than doubled the size of the original house, adding two wings and a workshop.

It opened as a museum in 1905 and in 1961 was declared a National Historic Landmark. 

A rare example of early French-Canadian architecture, McGulpin House is located on Mackinac Island, which was home to an Odawa settlement and previous indigenous cultures before European colonisation took the lands from the 17th century onwards.

Dating back to 1790, possibly earlier, it is the oldest house in Michigan and was moved to its present location in 1982, when it was restored. 

It was purchased in 1819 by baker William McGulpin, who lived there with his wife Madeline Bourassa and their many children. By all accounts, it is a great example of a working class family home from the fur trading era.

The house is now a museum and sections of the house are exposed to show the original lathe, plaster and wallpaper layers, as well as the home’s original rafters. One section of wall is even thought to have once housed a Catholic shrine. 

Built by the state’s first governor, Henry Hastings Sibley, in 1835, Sibley House in Mendota is the oldest private residence in Minnesota.

According to the Minnesota Historical Society, the house served as a private residence, business office and lodging house for individuals travelling to the area. Sibley was also the regional manager of the American Fur Company’s Sixoux Outfit, and was a centre of the fur trade in the area. 

After his tenure as governor, Sibley sold the house to the parish of St Peter’s Catholic Church and it served as a convent and industrial school for girls for many years before artist Burt Harwood used it as a studio and art school.

The historical site, which also includes Dupuis House, Faribault House and the cold store, which was used to store furs at the height of the fur trade, is now open to the public. Some items of Sibley’s original furniture were even located and restored to their original setting inside Sibley House. 

Sometimes called the Old Spanish Fort or Old French Fort, LaPointe Krebs House was built by former admiral Joseph Simon de La Pointe, who was granted land in Pascagoula by Governor Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.

The French colonial house was, according to reports, handed down to La Pointe’s daughter, who married German Hugo Krebs and the home remained in the family until 1914. It is the oldest house in the state and in the entire Mississippi valley. 

The one-storey structure originally had two rooms and a fireplace, and was constructed of a concrete-like material known as tabby, which is made by mixing together quicklime and water with sand, ash and oyster shell.

The house features a timber structure and roof. It was later extended and remodelled and by the turn of the 20th century had four rooms and two smaller rooms or “cabinets”.

Dating back to 1788, the Louis Bolduc House in Sainte Geneviève was built by French-Canadian settler and trader Louis Bolduc, who added to the original structure around 1794. The house features kitchen gardens and a detached kitchen that was built to spare the house should the kitchen catch fire.

Designed in the “poteaux-sur-sole” or “posts-on-sill” style which was popular at the time, it had a Norman truss roof and highlighted the family’s wealth and position, says the National Park Service. According to French Colonial America, which owns and manages the site, it is generally believed to be the oldest home in the state.

Records indicate the house remained in the Bolduc family until 1940, when it narrowly escaped demolition and being turned into a petrol station, before the National Society of Colonia Dames of Missouri stepped in.

The organisation purchased the property in order to restore it and preserve it for posterity. While a few items of furniture, such as Louis’s desk, survived the years, most of the period pieces were sourced from far and wide.

Ireland-born Peter Daly built this small log cabin in 1863 as a home for his family and an inn for weary travellers seeking their fortune during the Gold Rush of Alder Gulch.

The building, originally known as Daly’s Ranch, was extended and largely replaced in 1867 from locally milled logs of Sheridan. When the gold trade dwindled less than a decade later, it continued to operate as an inn until it was closed in the 1930s for violations of the National Prohibition Act, according to reports.

These days, it’s more commonly known as Robber’s Roost, and legend has it that it was once a hang-out for Montana’s most notorious criminal gang, The Innocents, who watched the travellers stopping here and robbed them in the wilderness between the two mining camps.

It was reputedly led by Henry Plummer, the sheriff of Bannock and Virginia City, and its members included his deputies. Although not one of the gang, Daly is said to have known of their actions. Most of the gang, including Plummer, were killed by the so-called Vigilantes. 

Built between 1830 and 1835, the Bellevue Log Cabin was relocated several times before reaching its final home on the property of a Presbyterian Mission in 1850. Originally sited close to the Missouri River as part of the Jacob Astor Fur Trading Post, it was moved away from the water during the cholera outbreak of 1835 before making its way to the small town of Bellevue.

The cabin is constructed of cottonwood logs, measuring nearly a foot thick with Indian lodge pole-style rafters. 

The cabin has been home to several notable settlers, including Joseph Betz, who used the cabin as a carpenter’s shop in 1856 while he built the Old Presbyterian Church nearby. Other inhabitants include James Gow, who went on to serve as County Judge and reportedly bought the cabin from an American Indian.

Periodic restoration projects in the 1950s have restored the cabin to its original condition.

A world away from the flashy buildings in Nevada’s most famous city of Las Vegas, the Reese-Johnson-Virgin House, or the Pink House as it is also known, is an elegant Gothic Revival-style house in the town of Genoa, which was first settled by Mormon adventurers as a trading post for Gold Rush pioneers.

John Reese of Salt Lake City built the house in 1855 next to his grist mill, but it wasn’t until 1870 when the property was purchased by merchant JR Johnson in 1870 that it was moved to its present location and painted its distinctive pink.

The property’s porch, white columns and railings were added later in 1883 by its next occupant Daniel Webster Virgin, who became the first district attorney of Douglas County and a judge. Since then it has had several owners and has been restored to its former glory.

Today The Pink House is a hub of activity: by day it's a restaurant and shop selling cheese and charcuterie, and by night it’s a music venue and private venue for parties. 

The oldest surviving wood-frame house in New Hampshire, the Richard Jackson House was built by early settler Richard Jackson in 1664. The farmer and woodworker constructed the house as a two-storey structure with two rooms on each floor and one enormous chimney.

It is a plank-and-frame building which was typical of the post-medieval English style and identifiable from its  steep roofs, diagonal wooden bracing and small windows. 

The house has undergone several transformations, and in 1715 the occupants added a lean-to extension to the kitchen for food storage.

The house was shared by several family groups and living conditions were cramped. According to the 1727 census, 12 men along with their wives and children lived in the house together.

The house has been restored over the years and is currently owned by Historic New England, who offer guided tours twice a month.

Said to be the oldest log cabin in the United States, Nothnagle Log Cabin in Greenwich New Jersey is thought to have been built by early Finnish settlers in 1638.

Constructed from white oak logs, dove-tailed at the corners for extra strength, the cabin’s fireplace is also evident of Finnish workmanship because it is built with the chimney inside the structure, providing extra warmth, according to NJ.com.

Repairs to the cabin were done by hand by its former owner, Harry Rink, whose widow Doris sold the property in 2023 for $262,000 (£208k), which was far less than its original $2.9 million (£2.3m) price tag, reports Patch.

The cabin had been on the market since 2017 because the couple were holding out for a buyer who would allow them to continue living in the 18th-century adjacent building and carry on giving tours of the cabin, reports Town and Country.

The original sky-high price included a priceless collection of artefacts from the mid-1600s, including spinning wheels, steamer trunks and farm machinery which were sold off in estate sales. 

Also known as Sky City, due to its location atop a 357-foot-high mesa, Acoma Pueblo is considered the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States.

Founded as early as 1150 AD, according to National Park Service, and changing throughout the centuries, fewer than 50 tribal members live year-round in the earthen homes of the village. The exterior walls are continuously replastered with mud, a technique which has enabled the structures to endure for so many centuries.

Acoma Pueblo today comprises approximately 300 two-and-three-storey adobe buildings. The upper storeys of these buildings are accessed by wooden ladders, a traditional defence mechanism used to prevent home invasion.

Customarily, these houses had no doors or windows, making ladders the only means of entry. Consequently, the building’s upper stories were residential, while their ground floors were used for storage.

The oldest surviving building in New York City, Wyckoff House is the only structure still standing that was built before New York became a British colony in 1664.

It was home to Pieter Claesen Wyckoff, a former indentured servant who set sail from Amsterdam in 1636, and lived here with his wife and 11 children. It was also home to eight generations of their offspring.

The house stayed in the family until 1901, when this part of Brooklyn was still farmland. It suffered many years of neglect until it was restored in 1982 and today operates as a museum.

The oldest part of the house is the kitchen, which would have originally had dirt floors and no glass in the windows. The Common Parlour, with its English-style hearth, was added in 1730, while the Formal Parlour, where the family would have kept their prized possessions, was built around 1750.

Lane House was only recognised as the oldest dated house in North Carolina in 2013, when dendrochronologists revealed that the trees used to build the timber-frame structure in Edenton were felled in 1718. Prior to this, the oldest house in the state dated back to 1726.

The owners of the house, Steve and Linda Lane, bought the property to turn into a rental, according to reports. 

It was during the renovation project that that experts discovered that exposed wood (seen here), timbers, ceiling joists and other features that seemed much older, according to WRAL News. 

It is not known who owned the house originally, but it is thought it would have had two rooms on the first floor and two in the attic, as well as two large exterior end chimneys. The house provides a rare glimpse of a typical home for the average citizen at the time.

The Gingras Trading Post State Historic Site near the Pembina River and Pembina Mountain preserves the home and trading post of legislator and businessman Antoine Blanc Gingras.

Of Métis Nation heritage and European ancestry, Gingras was a prominent fur trader who established his home and trading post here in 1843 and became a very successful businessman. In 1861, he claimed a net worth of $60,000 (£48k), which is roughly equivalent to $5.9 million (£4.7m) in today’s money.

Gringras’s hand-hewn oak log store and home are among the few tangible remains of the fur trade in the Red River Valley. While the logs are exposed on the two-storey trading post, clapboard siding covers the log structure of the house.

The house has been painted in its original historic colours, a deep red with white trim, while the interior reproduces the original colour scheme of blue walls, yellow floors, pink ceilings and green-and-brown trim. 

Now enclosed within the Campus Martius Museum in Marietta, the Rufus Putnam House was built in 1788 and is the oldest house in Ohio.

Rufus Putnam was a Revolutionary War hero and co-founder of the Ohio Company, which established the first settlements west of the Allegheny Mountains. After the Treaty of Greeneville, the fortifications were no longer needed and the buildings were dismantled except for the Rufus Putnam House. 

Putnam used lumbar from the demolished buildings to expand his own residence, adding two bedrooms and a kitchen wing. He lived in the house with his second wife, Persis (his first wife died in childbirth), for the rest of his life.

The house was purchased as an historic site and in 1931 enclosed within the Campus Martius Museum, which was erected in 1928. It was restored by the Ohio Historical Society and is open to visitors. 

Sequoyah, whose mother was Cherokee and father was probably a Virginia soldier, is one of the most influential figures in Cherokee history. Though lame in one leg, he was a skilled silversmith and blacksmith, who is celebrated for creating a written form of the Cherokee language, which enabled his people to read, write and preserve their culture.

He settled in present-day Oklahoma in 1929, constructing a one-room cabin from local timber which was typical of frontier homes of the time. 

After his death in 1843, his widow Sallie sold the cabin to Cherokee couple George and Nancy Blair, who were forcefully removed during the Trail of Tears.  The cabin was restored in 1936 and enclosed within a protective structure.

Today it stands within Sequoyah’s Cabin State Park and is furnished to appear how it might have looked when Sequoyah resided here.

While the so-called Molalla Log House is probably the oldest standing structure in Oregon, the Jason Lee House, constructed in 1841, is thought to be the oldest wooden frame house in the state.

It was built for Jason Lee, a Methodist missionary who was instrumental in establishing the first permanent Methodist mission in the state. The two-storey house was relocated from its original site in Salem and is now part of the Willamette Heritage Center.

Typical of other 19th-century buildings of the time, it features architectural features such as a gabled roof, clapboard siding, full-width front porch and double-hung windows. The house was enlarged in later years and a fireplace and central stair hall were added. The modified layout consists of two large rooms on the ground floor and four rooms on the upper floor.

Various artefacts related to the house and the Reverend’s work have been displayed to offer visitors an insight into early pioneer history in the state.

Built sometime between 1640 and 1650 along Darby Creek, the Lower Swedish Cabin is considered the oldest house and the oldest building in Pennsylvania.

Built by Scandinavian settlers who were part of the colony of New Sweden, it served as a homestead and trading post to serve settlers and the local Lenape Indians, who exchanged furs and other goods with the settlers.

Constructed of logs that fit together by notches cut into them without the use of nails, the two-storey cabin has two fireplaces made of stone and is thought to have been enlarged over the years.

It was used in the early 1900s as a movie location for filmmaker Siegmund Lubin, and was later used as a campsite location for a local Girl Scout troupe for several years. It was renovated most recently in 1989, and is now managed by a conservation group.

While several structures in Newport, Rhode Island, claim to have been constructed before, Clemence-Irons House is considered the oldest house in the state, according to dendrochronological testing.

Located along the Woonasquatucket River, it is a rare example of a stone-ender that were built by English colonists in Rhode Island. One side of the building is made of stone, containing a massive fireplace and chimney, while the other three sides are made of wood.

Built by Richard Clemence in 1691, its last owner-occupant was Miss Ellen Eliza Irons, a school teacher and single woman who raised an unrelated child and died in 1937.

It is thought the house was based on a modest English Tudor cottage, right down to the stonework of its Elizabethan-style chimney. It was purchased in 1938 by the Sharpe siblings, who undertook an extensive restoration to return it to its 17th-century appearance. 

Built in 1697, Middleburg Plantation, sitting on 400 acres in Berkeley County, was named after the town of Middleburg in the Netherlands, where its owner, wealthy planter and slave owner Benjamin Simons, spent part of his childhood.

The original structure was a two-storey building with two rooms on each floor that was extended over the years. Its porches and additional rooms are believed to have been added in the 18th century.

The home remained in the Simons family for several generations until 1872, when it was given to John Coming Ball as collateral on a loan. Ironically, Ball ended up marrying a Simons descendant and restored Middleburg into a thriving rice plantation.

The property, which includes a 19th-century carriage house, was restored in the 1980s and sold in 2021 for nearly $4.5 million (£3.6m).

Although Fort Sisseton is older, Herman Luce Cabin, located within Lake Herman State Park, is arguably the oldest standing house in South Dakota.

Former cavalryman Luce and his family were the first white settlers in the area and constructed the one-room cabin from hewn oak logs built over a stone cellar. The one-and-a-half storey structure has a gabled wooden-shingled roof, two doors and still stands on its original site.

As well as being a home for his family, the cabin was a post office for the tiny community of Herman.

Behind the historic cabin is a cemetery that reflects the hardships of the early pioneers. It is the final resting place of several members of the same family, including Herman’s wife, who died in a fire, according to reports, alongside their eight-year-old daughter Mary.

Constructed between 1775 and 1780, Carter Mansion in Elizabethton is, as it says on the sign on the front lawn, the oldest frame house in the state of Tennessee and the first to have glass windows.

Built by John Carter, a merchant who fought in the Revolutionary War and was a leading political figure, the two-storey house was constructed in the vernacular Georgian style to reflect their social standing. 

The interior of the house is noted for its elaborate design and includes nine-foot-high ceilings on the first floor and extensive wood panelling, say reports. The second floor features wainscotting and painted pine surfaces to simulate marble or wood veneer.

The house remained in the family until 1882 before eventually being purchased by the state of Tennessee and opened to the public as part of the Sycamore Shoals State Historical Area.

Dating back to 1749, when the Spanish ruled Texas, the Spanish Governor’s Palace in San Antonio is the only remaining example of an aristocratic 18th-century Spanish Colonial town house in the state and the oldest residence there.

The house served as the Comandancia, or residence and working office of the Captain of the military fort, known as the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar. The historic adobe was a one-storey, U-shaped structure covered in stucco and surrounded by traditional Spanish gardens and a patio.

Sold to the city of San Antonio in 1928, the palace was restored in 1931 and today visitors can tour the building, which has been furnished with authentic Spanish colonial pieces.

There are various tales of hauntings within its walls, including by the so-called Lady in Grey who died in the house and is said to stare out of the window at passers-by.

While there are many ruins of the Pueblo Native Americans, whose history in the area dates back thousands of years, the oldest non-indigenous building in the state of Utah is the tiny cabin built by trapper and adventurer Miles Goodyear.

Built in 1845 as part of the Fort Buenaventura in what is now Ogden, it is constructed of sawed cottonwood logs and originally had a dirt floor.

The only surviving structure from Fort Buenaventura, which Goodyear sold to the Mormons in 1847, the cabin was home to the mountain man and his wife Pomona, daughter of the Ute Chief Pe-teet-neet, and their two children, according to HistoryToGo. He struck gold in California at Goodyear’s Bar but died soon after aged 32.

The cabin relocated several times before being willed to the city of Ogden and coming to its present location near Tabernacle Square.

While there is some mystery surrounding its early ownership, it is widely believed that the enigmatic Mooar-Wright House in Pownal is the oldest house in Vermont. Thought to have been built between 1750 and 1765, it is certainly the oldest continuously occupied house in the state.

Some say it was built as a tavern by Charles Wright in 1762, while others suggest that Jan Ernst DeVoet, a Dutch settler, built the home in the 1750s or earlier. The date has not been verified leading some to say that the Governor Hunt House, dated to 1764 using dendrochronology, is the oldest.

The building has a Dutch frame around a typically English layout. The name Mooar is attached to the house because, according to reports, the family are the last owners anyone in Pownal can recall.

The house was reportedly purchased in 2009 by Jean and Gary Dickson, who set about restoring it to its original condition.

Built in 1665 by Arthur Allen, Bacon’s Castle is the oldest documented house in Virginia.

A cruciform brick house with triple diamond chimneys and an English slate roof, it is also, according to the Virginia Landmarks Register, “the nation’s outstanding example of (English) high-style, seventeenth-century domestic architecture.” Also known as Allen’s Brick House, it became known as Bacon’s Castle following Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, when it was occupied by followers of frontiersman and rebel Nathaniel Bacon.

As a successful merchant and Justice of the Peace, Allen’s son inherited the house after his father’s death in 1669 and, according to reports, the property included quarters for slaves.

The house remained in the Allen family until 1843, and was purchased by Preservation Virginia in 1972, when it was restored. It is one of the only and finest examples of High Jacobean architecture in the United States and the oldest brick dwelling in North America.

Built by Londoners Richard and Charlotte Covington in 1848, this snug log cabin was both a home and a boarding school. The couple were hired by the Hudson Bay Company to teach the children from nearby Fort Vancouver, for whom the eight-mile trek home proved too difficult in challenging weather conditions.

Covington House was small, but beds for the children were made up in the loft of the cabin, while lessons, food preparation, dining and other activities took place in the main room. The couple were accomplished musicians and are thought to have brought the first piano to the Pacific Northwest, as well as a guitar and violin, and taught music to many of the area’s children.

They moved to Washington DC in 1867 and the cabin fell into neglect, at one time used as a rough shelter for animals. Finally in 1925 it was restored and is now managed by The Covington House Heritage Society and rented out for gatherings and events.

The oldest multi-storey log cabin in West Virginia, Col. James Graham House was built around 1770 by Col. James Graham and his wife Florence in Lowell, Summers County.

The sturdy dwelling is constructed from yellow poplar logs and rests on walnut sills with two massive hewn sandstone chimneys on either end. Superior to many similar buildings of the time the house sometimes served as a fort and gun holes in the logs can still be seen on the first floor.

However sturdy the home, it did not prevent the attack of Shawnee raiders in 1777, who killed an enslaved boy named Sharp and the Grahams’ ten-year-old son, John, as well as capturing their seven-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

It took the family eight years to locate and ransom back Elizabeth, by which time she had adapted to life with her captors and was courting a young Shawnee man. Reluctantly, she returned home, married a local man and had five children. The home is owned by the Graham House Preservation Society and is often opened to the public.

Built in 1776 by French-Canadian fur trader Joseph Roi, Tank Cottage is the oldest home extant in Wisconsin and is of wattle construction using willow trees, according to the National Register of Historic Places.

Roi was the first of seven settlers who built homes along the Fox River in what is now Green Bay, before selling it to Jacques Porlier, a judge and fur trader, who lived here until his death in 1839.

The cottage earned its name in 1850 when it was purchased by wealthy Norwegian missionary Niels Otto Tank, who founded a Moravian Church Settlement on the site. It was during this time that the cottage was extended and the exterior covered in clapboard, according to reports.

The cottage relocated on two occasions: in 1908 to Tank Park and in 1976 to its present site within the Heritage Hill State Historical Park, where it now serves as a museum.

Although the much larger Fort Laramie was established almost a decade before, Fort Bridger became a hub for fur trappers, Native Americans and pioneers on the Oregon Trail.

Established by mountain man Jim Bridger and his partner Louis Vasquez in 1843, it was composed of two double-log houses, a blacksmith shop and a pen for horses which, according to emigrant Edwin Bryant, was little more than “two or three miserable cabins, rudely constructed and bearing but a faint resemblance to habitable houses.”

It was nonetheless the site of the first school in the state of Wyoming, according to the Library of Congress, and served as a Pony Express, Overland Stage and transcontinental telegraph station in the 1860s.

Bridger was forced to sell the fort to the Mormons in 1855 after he was accused of selling alcohol and firearms to the Native Americans. It was garrisoned by the army between 1857 and 1890 and the site was named a Wyoming Historical Landmark and Museum in 1933.

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