Single- and Double-Pen Architecture

Single-pen architecture describes a log cabin built as one unit, a simple rectangle of four walls, while double-pen architecture joins two such log structures under one roof with a breezeway in between them. A related variant, the saddlebag house, has two rooms sharing a single central chimney and one or two front doors. The form is found across the United States and was applied mainly to log construction, though it was occasionally adapted to stone or brick for pioneer dwellings. Academic study of the type, including a 1958 study of the antecedents of the double-pen house itself, points to origins in the colonial and frontier era of American settlement, and the form sits alongside related traditions such as the dog trot house and the central passage house within the broader family of early American vernacular building.