page_title: Three-decker (house)
section_title: Variations
hierarchical_section_title: Three-decker (house) / Variations
caption_attribution_description: English: Triple decker housing in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
context_page_description: A certain type of three-story apartment building is often called a three-decker or triple-decker in the United States. These buildings are typical of light-framed, wood construction, where each floor usually consists of a single apartment, and frequently originally extended families lived in two or all three floors. Both stand-alone and semi-detached versions are common.
  During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tens of thousands of three-deckers were constructed, mostly in New England, as an economical means of housing the thousands of newly-arrived immigrant workers who filled the factories of the area. The economics of the three-decker are simple: the cost of the land, basement and roof are spread among three or six apartments, which typically have identical floor plans. The three-decker apartment house was seen as an alternative to the row-housing built in other cities of Northeastern United States during this period, such as in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.
context_section_description: Three-deckers are usually defined by the style of their roofs, being either gable, hip, or flat-roofed, with preference often varying regionally.  For instance, hipped and gabled three-deckers are dominant in Worcester. While typically lacking the ornamentation found on other homes of the Victorian period, they sometimes were built with certain decorative details, such as porch railings and posts. A typical feature of the triple-decker is a vertical stack of bay windows, usually facing the street side of the house.  The rear often has utility porches, which are often enclosed.
  Often, triple-deckers feature two apartments per floor, with the units sharing a common wall.
  Each apartment typically has a front and/or back porch for each apartment, and because the buildings are usually freestanding, there are windows on all four sides.  Some three-deckers feature a single front door that accesses all three units; others feature two entrances (one accessing the first floor unit externally, with the other leading to a stairwell to units two and three).
caption: A row of flat-roofed triple-deckers in Cambridge, Massachusetts
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "CYBERSHOT", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2006:12:10 17:25:49", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "218", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "CYBERSHOT", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2006:12:10 17:25:49", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "851", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3531", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "5/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:12:10 17:25:49", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:12:10 17:25:49", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "33/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "97/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1280", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "960", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "642", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}