Home Styles!! What exactly is Ranch and Mid-century architecture?

What style is my house? This week we dive into Ranch and mid-century modern design. What it is, and what it looks like. Come check it out.
Be sure to check our podcast Passion For Craft that will help you become a better craftsman and builder. / passionforcraft
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Here are a collection of books used in this talk in my Kit.Co library: kit.co/brenthu...
Here are more great books to check out on my Amazon associates page:
Design book for houses 1920- Architect Small House plan book: amzn.to/37XWaUI
500 Small houses of the 20's- Good designs for period revival homes: amzn.to/3DiH3kh
Samuel Chamberlain's drawings of Rural France: amzn.to/3utg15G
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[@AABrock]

I can understand why people don’t like them but I love a well done large sprawling ranch home. There is something nostalgic and comforting about them. I like when they just keep going and sometimes have open sunken dens. They can be really interesting homes.

[@BrentHull]

I totally agree!

[@MichaelJordan-dv7ds]

The ranch: America’s practical house. A U-shaped ranch is my favorite.

[@BrentHull]

Nice. thanks for sharing.

[@dougscrubjay3939]

I don’t live in a ranch and I don’t love the style, but I really like your field guide approach. It increases my understanding of the firm with an historical context. I do a walking tour of a ranch neighborhood and I learned a few things - thanks!

[@BrentHull]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@misscourtnie23]

I have lived in several different ranches growing up and currently live in one built in the 70s. I have lived in different style homes but the ranch to me is the most functional layout. I have doors to block off areas of my house which is great for containing mess and kids. It's also great when you want to do different activities. Our previous home was built in the 2000s so it was open concept. It definitely makes a small house look large and spacious but it feels small to live in. Everything is just one giant room. My current ranch house is only slightly larger than the one built in the 2000s but feels much bigger to live in because there are so many different spaces to ocupy. It might not have the character of a colonial or the beautiful moldings that I would love but it's a great family house.

[@BrentHull]

Agreed. thx.

[@shubinternet]

When I was about six, I remember running full speed towards a door I thought was open, and at the last moment I realized that the screen door was closed. And the window was closed. I did shatter the glass, but by some miracle, I did not get cut.

[@BrentHull]

Haha, its crazy.

[@janderson8401]

I grew up in a neighborhood that was in the town next to the Philip Johnson Glass House. We were surrounded by houses that ranged from some built before the American revolution to midcentury modern. The house my parents had built in 1968 was basically a ranch built into a slope so part of the basement was at grade level. It had some of the features you mention but my dad had designed it with a 9”/12” pitch roof and a long shed dormer on the back side so it could have been expanded to three mor bedrooms and two more baths.

[@BrentHull]

Thx for sharing.

[@MarkR874]

Ranch homes a great for families. You can’t beat the layout which often put the bedrooms down far from the living and kitchen spaces (thinking about those long horizontal lines). Were I am in Central Valley CA, there was a huge housing boom during this era so there are some pretty nice neighborhoods where the homes are all pretty much all ranch style and well done. There were some well known German Baptist builders in this area who built great homes so some of these neighborhoods are attached to them and their crews.

[@misscourtnie23]

In Fresno, there's a beautiful area near Bullard High School that has some great ranch architecture.

[@BrentHull]

Nice thanks for sharing.

[@ckm-mkc]

Funny, we're looking at buy a ranch in the next few months. We particularly like those ranches with exaggerated overhangs & details that you sometimes see - I think they are called 'fairy tale style' - echoing the 1920's style - you find them in and around LA. There's a great book called "Ranch House" by Alan Hess which showcases a lot of different variants.

[@BrentHull]

Love it. Thx.

[@cborecky]

You should do a follow-up about the transition from ranch houses to snout houses between 1970 and 1990. LOTS of those where I live. Also, where did the "ranch" name come from? Low-slung log cabins and sod houses?

[@BrentHull]

Ranches from the southwest.

[@JL-hn6hi]

Yeah, I saw the glass shatter in a kid-at-full-speed vs sliding glass door collision.

[@BrentHull]

Yep.

[@abuelc]

Hi Brent. Glad to see you discussing ranch.. im finally post drywall in a renovation of our 1976 raised ranch in Vermont. It's in a lovely neighborhood of production built homes that are mostly raised ranches (the kind you open the door in the middle of a staircase). For the interior trim, I'm having a bit of an identity crisis as I couldn't see myself installing clamshell. What are your thoughts about clashes in exterior vs interior aesthetics?

[@BrentHull]

I have the same problem at my house. I did not go back with clamshell because my house had already been "updated" by a previous owner and my house on the exterior isn't strong ranch in style (1962) So I went with something more traditional. Good luck.

[@bigredgreg1]

I remember the ranch style defined, in part, by the deep over hung eaves, while the cape cod style had shallow eaves. Both styles were ubiquitous of the era from 1950 to 1970, especially in tract developments.

[@BrentHull]

True. Thx.

[@ryansoo4000]

Hi Brent, great video! Have you heard of the book "Michelangelo, Drawings and the Invention of Architecture" by Cammy Brothers? I think you might enjoy it.

[@BrentHull]

Yes, but it has been awhile since I looked at it. I'm going to pull it out again. Thx.

[@haydenspence7107]

What exactly is Ranch and Mid-century architecture? Perfection.

[@BrentHull]

Nice. Thx.

[@shubinternet]

So, my favorite architect and one of my favorite houses of all time, is responsible for this house design that I despise more than just about any other? Frank Lloyd Wright is responsible for the Ranch style house?!?

[@BrentHull]

Haha. His influence is clear.

[@mikejarrells431]

Thanks & good job. Is the ranch style a subset/continuation of the Craftsman movement?

[@BrentHull]

well, I suppose you could argue some of that. I don't think there is a lot of support but there is some. THx.

[@thenexthobby]

What I'm wondering is, were they influenced by all the romance of the cowboy West? "Westerns" had been popular since the 30's in movies, '50s TV and beyond. Did the American cowboy west have "ranch" buildings with these slow slung, horizontal attributes? If not, where's the name come from?

[@BrentHull]

Watch my building and brews video. It goes into greater detail.

[@alb2620]

Probably my favorite style when done well. Lots of ugly ranches out there but a good ranch is hard to beat.

[@BrentHull]

Agreed. Thx.

[@pcatful]

Brent. I am retiring and I have some great old books--and then some newer ones like Francis Ching collections. I wonder if there is craftsman library I could donate them to. I have a 1947 book on roof framing (but it feels older, being the knowledge the author gained in the early 20th century--it was actually republished in 1972)--just great knowledge on complex framing without tables or calculators.

[@kurtvonfricken6829]

Brent collects books. 📚 perhaps he would take them…

[@BrentHull]

I'm always looking for good construction/design books. I don't know of craftsman library. Send me the titles to [e-mail] I may already have them.

[@BradThePitts]

I see the similarities, but the way I see it is there's still a clear difference between a ranch home and mid-century modern home. The ranch home is much simpler. The mid century modern home has avant-garde fratures such as beamed ceilings, floor to ceiling windows, and often times funky colors such as bright green and orange. All squares are rectangles, but rectangles are not squares. In other words, not every home built in the middle of the last century is a Mid-Century Modern.

[@BrentHull]

Agreed. Thx.

[@ashantipeace]

Can you recommend an architectural historian/builder that looks at building from Asia, Africa or South America?

[@BrentHull]

Sorry, I don't know any.

[@kevinm-py1nt]

The street I grew up on had really cool "modern" homes built in the 1950's. By the 70's, the flat roofs were all leaking. Being in Ohio, they "pitched" roofs, added aluminum siding, shutters, and the "colonial" black eagle decoration. Even as a kid, I was sad to see the changes. I wanted one of the cool houses. Our house looked like it was straight from Nantucket.

[@Timmakesmusic]

Practically every building with a flat roof I have ever lived or worked in has leaked. Everything from 1970s brutalist, to 2010s postmodernist, to modern extensions on period buildings. There's a reason why very few traditional buildings outside of very dry climates have flat roofs. My background is in the library, archive and cultural heritage sector too, where you really don't want water getting into your building and onto the things it holds. In fact, my interest in architecture partly stems from repeated experiences with buckets and plastic sheeting, doing damage limitation while wondering why we can't seem to design watertight buildings any more.

[@BrentHull]

Thx for sharing.

[@haleyhamer7128]

In trying to fix a ranch that has been through some window replacements over the years, what windows would you suggest?

[@ckm-mkc]

Ground zero for affordable steel windows (if that's the look you are after) is Cincinnati. A friend of mine buys old warehouses & turns them into living spaces, he said, outside of New York (which is really expensive), this is where all the knowledge & suppliers are. Also, Pilkington (?) makes a really thin double pane that you could use in steel or aluminum windows.

[@misscourtnie23]

I'm currently doing the same thing. We are sticking with newer aluminum windows. While not as energy efficient as vinyl, they are better than the 50 year old ones they are replacing. They have a bigger viewing pane and stick closer to the style of the ranch (at least in our case). Lots of neighbors went with vinyl but aluminum feels more consistent with the style.

[@BrentHull]

Its tough if the original were aluminum. Steel is close. Vinyl or wood can look clunky.

[@michelleoliver7002]

But I do t like this style and my house is a tri level ranch. Is there a way to make it look like an English cottage? Must I change the low roof line to accomplish this? 😢

[@ckm-mkc]

It would be cheaper and better for the house if you just move.... Plus, if you live in the US, I'm not sure what the story is behind an "English cottage" in another country.

[@BenjesBride]

Our previous house was a tri-level. There’s simply no way to make it something else. It is what it is. Took us 7 years to figure this out and we moved. Our entire neighborhood was tri levels and split entries. Any major exterior changes just looked ridiculous and certainly added nothing to market value. I would never encourage anyone to purchase a trilevel.

[@BrentHull]

Sadly I suspect.

[@robertrusso877]

As ugly and cheaply made as they are, isn’t the McMansion the last recognizable style in America? And, if it is, the next question is in 50 years will people be clamoring to buy one of these “retro” style homes or be upset if someone demolishes one to build whatever style we will be building in the 2070s?

[@BrentHull]

The McMansion is a derogatory term for an ugly house. I suspect we won't be doing that because they are cheaply built and won't last. I could be wrong. We'll see how it goes in the next 10 years. thx.