What Goes With a Blue Slate Roof?

Second Empire

• Second Empire style is a boxy copy of housing built in Paris during the reign of Napoleon III. The most telling detail of this style is the mansard roof, an opportunity to show off beautiful roofing materials, as so much of the roof is near vertical and highly visible. Blue slate roof tiles might crown a gray or cream stucco building with iron trim. The slate colors might be varied from deep blue to paler blue, in a design to highlight the roof. Second Empire homes are found in the urban areas of the Northeast and Midwest, where it was easy to get slate tiles from the New England and Mid-Atlantic quarries.

Tudor

• Tudor homes, also known as Tudor Revival, can be somewhat free-form in shape but feature precipitously pitched roofs and often have timber frames punctuating the expanses of stucco siding. Blue slate against the white stucco and dark beams that are common is a standout. It is typical to see textural slate roofs on Tudor houses, according to the National Parks Service. Tudor style is a bit unpolished and imprecise, and textural tiles complement that aesthetic. Textural slate tiles are made in varied thicknesses with uneven edges so each one is different. The rough shapes and occasional varied tones of blue complete the sense of a building that is painstakingly handcrafted.

Gothic Revival

• The grand structures of university campuses and religious institutions feature a lot of Gothic architecture, and the enduring stone of a blue slate roof works seamlessly with that style. Gothic homes and halls have windows pointed at the top, embellishments of stained or leaded glass and the occasional parapet or tower. Construction is frequently stone but always a substantial material. Blue slate roofs on a Gothic building are graduated. The largest and thickest slates are laid at the lower edge of the roof or the eaves. Then tiles are graduated in size and thickness to the ridge where the smallest, thinnest tiles cap the roof. Any variation in shades of blue would be random and designed to look weathered, not decoratively patterned.

Queen Anne

• Queen Anne style is a British hybrid that blends bits of many British architectural styles into a Victorian fantasy. A Queen Anne brick home usually features detailing in the red and slightly variegated brick. The drama of its blue slate roof might be echoed in the paint color on trim, doors and shutters. Wood siding and shingle Queen Anne homes feature adventurous color schemes and details from turrets and towers to wide, fancy porches. The blue tile on a “painted lady” is visible on the irregular and steeply pitched roof with its many shapes and planes. Blue slate on a multicolored Queen Anne might be mixed with red, green and purple American slate or trace a pattern in shades of blue and blue-gray across the roof.