The oldest buildings in America: Taos Pueblo, the Palace of the Governors, St Augustine, the Fairbanks House and the oldest still in use, state by state

Architecture · 4 September 2026

The oldest buildings in the United States are Native American, not European: Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, a five-storey town of adobe built about 1000 to 1450 and lived in continuously since, and Acoma Pueblo on its mesa, occupied since about 1150, with the stone cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde in Colorado, of about 1190 to 1280, the oldest standing structures of all, abandoned since. The oldest European building is the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, built by the Spanish in 1610 and the seat of government for 300 years; the oldest masonry fort is the Castillo de San Marcos at St Augustine, Florida, of 1672–95; the oldest English house is the Fairbanks House at Dedham, Massachusetts, a timber-frame house of 1637 that the Fairbanks family lived in until 1904; and the oldest church, Mission San Miguel in Santa Fe, is of about 1610 and rebuilt in 1710. Below: the buildings by kind and by region, what is known of their dates, the oldest still used for their original purpose, the claims made by every town and which ones stand, with the houses' styles in American house styles and the world's oldest in the oldest buildings in the world.

Native American: the oldest of all

• Taos Pueblo, New Mexico (about 1000–1450). Two multi-storey blocks of adobe, Hlauuma and Hlaukwima, on either side of a stream at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, built between about 1000 and 1450 and lived in without a break since, by the Taos people, about 150 of whom still live in the old houses without electricity or running water; the oldest continuously inhabited buildings in the United States and a World Heritage Site since 1992. The walls are mud brick plastered with mud every year, the roofs of cedar logs and branches under earth, and the upper floors were reached by ladders with no doors on the ground floor, for defence, until the 1900s.
• Acoma Pueblo, "Sky City", New Mexico (about 1150). A town on a mesa 367 feet above the plain, occupied since about 1150 and claimed by its people to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in North America, with Taos and Old Oraibi in Arizona (about 1100) making the same claim; the buildings are adobe and stone, rebuilt many times, and the mission church of San Esteban del Rey of 1629–41 is the oldest intact church in the Southwest.
• Mesa Verde, Colorado (about 1190–1280). About 600 cliff dwellings of sandstone and mortar under the overhangs of the canyons, Cliff Palace with 150 rooms and 23 kivas the largest, built by the Ancestral Puebloans and abandoned by 1300, in a drought; the oldest standing buildings in the country, though no one has lived in them for 700 years, and a national park since 1906.
• Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (about 850–1150). Pueblo Bonito's 800 rooms in a D-shaped great house of five storeys, the largest building in North America until the 19th century, in ruins.
• Cahokia, Illinois (about 1050–1350). Monks Mound, an earthen platform 100 feet high, larger at its base than the Great Pyramid, the remains of the largest city north of Mexico; earthworks rather than buildings, and the timber structures on top are gone.

List of the oldest buildings in the United States.

Spanish: Santa Fe and St Augustine

• Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe (1610). A one-storey adobe building on the plaza, built when Santa Fe was founded as the capital of Nuevo México by Pedro de Peralta, the seat of Spanish, Mexican and American territorial governors until 1909, taken by the Pueblo Revolt in 1680 and retaken in 1693, and now a museum; the oldest public building in continuous use in the United States, though rebuilt so often that little of 1610 remains beyond the plan and some walls.
• San Miguel Mission, Santa Fe (about 1610, rebuilt 1710). Claimed as the oldest church in the country; the adobe walls are of the 1710 rebuilding after the Revolt burned it, on foundations of 1610.
• Castillo de San Marcos, St Augustine, Florida (1672–95). The oldest masonry fort in the United States, of coquina, a soft shell-stone that absorbed cannonballs rather than shattering, built by the Spanish after Drake and the pirates had burned the wooden forts; never taken, and a national monument.
• St Augustine (founded 1565). The oldest European city in the country, though its oldest houses are 18th century: the González-Alvarez "Oldest House" of about 1723, coquina and wood, is the oldest in Florida.
• Mission churches. San Esteban at Acoma (1641), the Mission San Xavier del Bac near Tucson (1783–97), the Alamo in San Antonio (1744–56) and the four San Antonio missions, the California missions from San Diego (1769) to Sonoma (1823), all later.

English: the oldest houses of the colonies

• Fairbanks House, Dedham, Massachusetts (1637–41). The oldest timber-frame house in North America, dated by dendrochronology of its oak to trees felled in 1637–41, built for Jonathan Fairbanks, a Yorkshire weaver, and lived in by his descendants for 268 years until 1904, when the family made it a museum; a central chimney, a steep roof, clapboard walls, and additions of the 18th century on both ends.
• Henry Whitfield House, Guilford, Connecticut (1639). The oldest stone house in New England, built for the minister of a Puritan settlement as a house and fort, with walls three feet thick; a museum since 1899.
• C. A. Nothnagle Log House, Gibbstown, New Jersey (about 1638–43). Said to be the oldest log cabin in America, built by Finnish or Swedish settlers of New Sweden, one room of hewn oak; the log cabin was their gift to America.
• Adam Thoroughgood House, Virginia Beach (about 1680–1720). Once claimed as 1636, dated by its bricks to about 1720; Virginia's oldest houses, Bacon's Castle (1665) in Surry County, the oldest brick house in the country, with its Jacobean gables, and the Wren Building at William and Mary (1695–1700), the oldest college building.
• Boston. The Paul Revere House of about 1680, the oldest in downtown Boston; the Old State House of 1713; King's Chapel of 1754.
• New York. The Wyckoff House in Brooklyn of about 1652, a Dutch farmhouse, the oldest in the state; the Bowne House in Flushing of 1661; the Dyckman farmhouse of 1785 the last on Manhattan.
• Philadelphia. Gloria Dei, Old Swedes' Church, of 1698–1700, the oldest church in Pennsylvania; the oldest house is the Lower Swedish Cabin of about 1640 on Darby Creek.

The oldest still in use

• As a house. Taos Pueblo; among European houses, the Fairbanks House was lived in until 1904 and the Old House at Cutchogue on Long Island (1649) into the 20th century; private houses of the 1680s and 90s in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Virginia are lived in today.
• As a church. San Esteban del Rey at Acoma (1641) and San Miguel in Santa Fe hold services; the Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts (1681), is the oldest Puritan meeting house in continuous use, and St Luke's in Smithfield, Virginia (about 1682, once claimed as 1632), the oldest brick church.
• As a tavern. The White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island, of 1673, licensed in 1687, claims to be the oldest in the country; the Bell in Hand in Boston, 1795, the oldest continuously operated.
• As a school. The Wren Building at William and Mary (1700) is the oldest college building in use; Massachusetts Hall at Harvard (1720) the oldest at Harvard.
• As a seat of government. The Palace of the Governors to 1909; the Maryland State House in Annapolis (1772–79), the oldest state capitol still in legislative use and the only one that has been the national capitol, in 1783–84; Independence Hall (1732–53).
• As a hotel. The Omni Parker House in Boston, 1855, the oldest continuously operating; the Beekman Arms in Rhinebeck, New York, 1766, the oldest inn.
• As a lighthouse. Sandy Hook, New Jersey, of 1764, the oldest working lighthouse; the lighthouses' story is in the collection of American lighthouses.

The oldest by region

• Southwest. Taos and Acoma; the Palace of the Governors (1610); San Miguel; the Barrio de Analco houses in Santa Fe of the 1700s.
• Florida. Castillo de San Marcos (1672); the González-Alvarez House (about 1723); the Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine (1793–97).
• New England. Fairbanks (1637), Whitfield (1639), the Jackson House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire (1664), the Old Ship Church (1681), the Wanton-Lyman-Hazard House in Newport (1697).
• Mid-Atlantic. Wyckoff (1652), Nothnagle (1640s), Gloria Dei (1700), the Old Swedes' Church in Wilmington, Delaware (1698).
• South. Bacon's Castle (1665), St Luke's (1682), the Wren Building (1700), the Old Brick Church in Charleston (1680s), the Alamo (1744), the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans (1752), the oldest building in the Mississippi valley.
• Midwest. The Cahokia Courthouse in Illinois (about 1740), a French log house; the Holy Family church at Cahokia (1799).
• West. The California missions from 1769; the Petaluma Adobe (1836); in Hawaii the Mission Houses in Honolulu (1821) and the heiau temple platforms of the 13th to 18th centuries.
• Alaska. The Russian Bishop's House in Sitka (1842) and the Baranov castle site; the Russian church at Kenai (1894).

How the dates are known, and the myths

• Dendrochronology. The rings of the oak in a timber frame give the year the trees were felled, and since houses were built with green timber, the year of building; the method has moved the dates of most of the "oldest houses" of New England later, the Fairbanks from 1636 to 1637–41, and struck out several claims of the 1620s.
• Documents. Deeds, wills and town records give the owner and the land, not always the house, which may be a later one on the same site.
• Bricks. Virginia's houses, dated by their brickwork, have lost forty to eighty years each since the 1970s: the Thoroughgood House from 1636 to 1720.
• "Oldest house in town." Every town has one, usually a house of 1750 with a plaque saying 1650; the plaques of the Colonial Revival of 1900 were guesses and family pride, and the ones that have been tested have mostly lost.
• The Pilgrims' houses. None survives: the oldest in Plymouth are of the 1660s, and Plimoth Plantation is a reconstruction.
• The oldest wooden house in the world. Not in America: the Fairbanks is the oldest in North America; Norway's stave churches are of the 1100s and Japan's Hōryū-ji of 607.
• Taos or Acoma or Oraibi. All three claim the oldest continuously inhabited settlement; Oraibi's date of 1100 is the earliest, Acoma's town is the oldest on its site, and Taos's buildings are the oldest standing. None has been continuously occupied in the sense of never empty, and all are old enough.

Open the sections: buildings by style, ancient temples of the world, all articles.