Gulf house

A gulf house (East Frisian Low Saxon: gulfhuus; German: Gulfhaus), also called a gulf farmhouse (gulfhof) or East Frisian house (Oostfräisenhuus), is a type of byre-dwelling that emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries in North Germany. The core of the gulf house consists of a timber‑framed barn, which is built using a post-and-beam construction. Initially gulf houses and gulf barns appeared in the coastal marshes, but later spread to the Frisian uplands or geest. They were distributed across the North Sea coastal regions from Brabant and West Flanders through the Netherlands, East Frisia and Oldenburg as far as Schleswig-Holstein (as a variant called the Haubarg) and Northern Jutland. This spread was interrupted by the Elbe-Weser Triangle which developed a type of Low German house instead, better known as the Low Saxon house.

Historically, the gulf house belongs to a larger group of aisled barns, which also include medieval tithe barns, monastery granges and Early Modern buildings on farms and manors in France, Britain, the Low Countries, Germany, Scandinavia and the United States. The East Frisian Low Saxon word gulf (West Frisian: golle) is derived from Scandinavian gulv ('storage floor') and has probably spread in the context of medieval monastic farms.

In the Netherlands, a distinction is made between the Frisian barn as such, and the related farm subtype known as the Oldambt farm [nl], which in Germany is also called the Ostfriesenhaus. The other subtypes are the Frisian farmhouse ("house with Frisian barn"), the Haubarg or stolpboerderij (a type of housebarn from North-Holland and Eiderstedt), and the closely related stjelp farm [fy; nl] in Friesland. Main types of gulf barns are the Flemish barn [nl], the Brabant barn or grange en long, the Zeeland barn [nl], the West-Flemish bergschuur, and the Northern Jutland agerumslade [dk].

The gulf house and gulf barn owe their emergence to economic circumstances. Before their introduction the peasants of the Frisian North Sea marshes lived in Old Frisian farmhouses (Altfriesischer Bauernhaus or oud-Friese boerenhuis), a so-called byre-dwelling (Wohnstallhaus). These relatively small buildings had enough working space because they did not have to store large harvests. Cereal farming was only possible on a higher-lying grounds, whilst large parts of the poorly drained marshes were only suitable as meadow and pasture.

The agricultural boom in the 16th and early 17th centuries, however, resulted in an increase of arable land and led to the embankment of new polders, which were ideally suited for cereal farming. Improved drainage technologies also resulted in an increase of arable land. The growing demand for dairy products, moreover, stimulated the emergence of large pastoral farms. In order to store the growing harvest quantities a house with greater storage capacity was needed, which is how the gulf house came into being. Medieval tith barns and monastic granges may have offererd the example.

The typical East-Frisian gulf house consisted of a living space (fööeräen) and an adjoining working area (achteräen) with stable and barn. By extending the roof downwards in the rear part of the house, side bays (Abseiten) were created, the so-called ūtkübben, so that the barn area became wider than the living area. The centre of the stable and barn section formed the gulf, a storage area for hay, harvest products and tools, which gave this type of house its name.

In one of the side bays were compartments or stalls for keeping cattle (kaustâl). The walkway running in front of them was called the kaugâng ("cow passage"). At the far end there was traditionally the privy (gemak).

At the gable end of the working area were two doors: a large barn door (sğüerdööer) on one side, that gave access for wagons to the threshing floor (dösdêl) and the gulf, and a small, double door (messeldööer) on the other side. The latter derived its name because it was the door through which cattle dung was carried from the kaugâng (dung = mäers; remove dung = messen).