 The external appearance of Holkham can best be described as a huge Roman palace . However , as with most architectural designs , it is never quite that simple . Holkham is a Palladian house , and yet even by Palladian standards the external appearance is austere and devoid of ornamentation . This can almost certainly be traced to Coke himself . The on @-@ site , supervising architect , Matthew Brettingham , related that Coke required and demanded " <unk> " , which can be interpreted as comfort . Hence rooms that were adequately lit by one window , had only one , as a second might have improved the external appearance but could have made a room cold or draughty . As a result , the few windows on the piano nobile , although symmetrically placed and balanced , appear lost in a sea of brickwork ; albeit these yellow bricks were cast as exact replicas of ancient Roman bricks expressly for Holkham . Above the windows of the piano nobile , where on a true Palladian structure the windows of a mezzanine would be , there is nothing . The reason for this is the double height of the state rooms on the piano nobile ; however , not even a blind window , such as those often seen in Palladio 's own work , is permitted to alleviate the severity of the facade . On the ground floor , the rusticated walls are pierced by small windows more reminiscent of a prison than a grand house . One architectural commentator , Nigel Nicolson , has described the house as appearing as functional as a Prussian riding school . 
