The ranch house rides again

Sunset, March, 1992 by Daniel P. Gregory

Low price was part of the promise when the original stampede on subdivision tract houses occurred after World War II. To meet the demand, earth movers and construction crews surged over open land around nearly every Western city from Denver to Honolulu. And when the dust had settled, it was the tract ranch house, with its low-slung roof line and two-car garage facing the street, that had won the West. Today, the rancher's promise lies in its remodeling potential. Remodelers--not new-home buyers or builders--are in the saddle. Nearly every month, Sunset reports how these boxy houses, where the baby boomers grew up, are being adapted to contemporary realities and dreams. This month, on the following nine pages, we dig down to the roots of the ranch house and round up a remodeler's guide to design strategies.

Ranch houses didn't really ride out of the corral and into the cul-de-sac until the 1930s and '40s, when Sunset and other magazines recognized in them a style with deep roots in the West and an easy adaptability to contemporary needs.

Though many modern architects experimented with ranch house forms, it was Southern California bandleader-turned-designer Cliff May who became the most effective at popularizing the ranch house ideal.

May updated the one story Spanish California ranch house, with its deep overhangs, by building in such modern inventions as plate-glass windows, all electric kitchens, and carports.

When Sunset editors discovered Cliff May, they hit pay adobe. In a memorable description from the '30s, Sunset editors wrote that May's houses--stretching across suburban sites "ramble almost to the point of departure, with lines as natural and satisfying as those of the hills."

Rambling also meant ease of movement between indoors and out--a feature that was hard to achieve in houses with conventional aboveground footings.

May perfected and popularized the concrete slab foundation poured over a crudhed-rock cushion In an interview conducted in 1984, he recalled: "I wanted the concrete slab to keep the house low on the ground . . . You can't get . . . continuity . . . to the garden if you are looking down steps at it."

May's ranch houses were as irresistible as the dance music he once conducted. A walk through a Cliff May wasn't just a walk; it was a ramble into nature, or a big-band two-step to Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In."

It didn't take long for other builders and developers to pick up the beat. During the post World War 11 building boom, when new jobs in the expanding high-technology and aerospace industries were attracting young families to the San Fernando and Santa Clara valleys, for example, builders and developers saw the ranch house as a new-but-not-too-radical way to package the affordable dream house. The style was simply shrunk to fit subdivision lots, though the shrinkage tended to eliminate key attributes.

Like the California bungalow popularized at the turn of the century, the tract ranch house became the most famous low-cost house of its era, eclipsing the two-story, steeply roofed, snow-defensive developer houses of the East. Even Barbie's dream doll house became a miniature ranch house.

Quirky ornamental details occasionally got mixed in--such as Cinderella-inspired gingerbread ornamentation along the eaves, diamond-shaped windowpanes, wagon wheels attached to a front wall, or little haylofts or dovecotes above the garage.

Affordability helped buyers overlook some obvious drawbacks: streetscapes with a cookie-cutter sameness, dark and boxy rooms, hard-to-reach outdoor spaces. To fulfill their promise, tract ranch houses often needed help.

Today, they offer the appeal of established neighborhoods with mature planting; proximity to schools, shopping, and freeways; and space to add on. With remodeling, the tract ranch house can become a dream house once again.

If you can't walk out of the living room or the bedroom or the kitchen onto the ground. . . why, you're not living like a real Californian," declared Cliff May, sounding his favorite theme about the importance of a seamless link between house and patio. A contemporary nod to his belief guided the remodel of this two-bedroom ranch house in a Southern California canyon.

Pat Barash and Herb Katz faulted their house on typical tract rancher failings: not enough windows, limited interaction with the outdoors, chopped-up rooms. Also, a two-car garage hogged a prime position bordering the patio. The owners wanted a free-flowing indoor-outdoor environment appropriate for entertaining.

Working closely with Barash, an interior designer, Los Angeles architects Ann Agnew and Don Boss rethought the entire layout to treat house and patio as a unified living space. They converted the garage to a new master bedroom--suite accessible to the patio--and remodeled the old master bedroom into a dining-family room with French doors opening to patio and pool. The old dining area became part of the expanded living room.

To comply with local requirements for covered parking, Agnew and Boss designed a new carport (see tone on plan). For the street view of the updated facade, turn to page 85.