Only three of the 295 log houses in Warren’s investigation
were of the saddle-bag type. The saddle-bag house is
characterized by two rooms or pens sharing a wall with a
central chimney. Each pen has a fireplace opening and is
covered by a common roof. The term, saddlebag, was not one
that Warren heard used in Indiana.
"An examination of the three houses showed that in each the two log rooms must have been built at different times, for the workmanship on the logs was markedly different in the two rooms. We may assume that a person living in a one-room, one-and-a-half-story house wanted more living space and decided to build another room. Rather than adding on at the end away from the fireplace, he added on at the end with the fireplace in it. This demanded a complex piece of masonry building, for each fireplace requires a separate fire box and a separate flue. None of the three houses has a door in the walls between the two rooms, but each room has a front and back door and the houses all have front porches, In order to get from one room to another, one used the porch as a hallway."
Warren Roberts, Log
Buildings in Southern Indiana,
1996, 145.
one-and-a-half story