Question: I am getting ready to buy my first home. I keep hearing the term βranch style.β What is that?
A: Ranch-style is an architectural style that started in California. Settlers built houses for their ranches. The original ranch families needed a home that was functional for its time and their livelihood. A family house was not the only kind of building on a ranch. There were tack, smoke, bunk and spring houses that were also built on the property. Each structure was built along certain contours of the land to take advantage of how the water flowed, the sun shined and the wind blew. As the family who lived there grew, they would connect the other structures to the house, thus creating infill rooms to make a bigger house.
Hereβs where it gets confusing. There are historic houses on ranch property that are the original ranch houses (think cowboys and horses). The ranch houses of the general public were developed during the Great Depression by California architect, Cliff May.
The ranch-style house, particularly those built in the 1960s and 1970s, were modernized and feature these character-defining architectural elements:
- Usually single story
- Concrete slab on grade
- Long, low-pitch roofline
- Mostly masonry with brick, adobe and wood materials
- L-shaped or U-shaped design
- Simple, open floor plans
- Attached garage
- Sliding glass doors opening onto the patio
- Picture windows
- Corner windows and carports
- Vaulted ceilings with exposed beams
- Deep eaves
- Cross-gabled, side-gabled or hip roof
These characteristics are some of the reasons I have always been a fan of the ranch house. When built of masonry, it constitutes one of the easiest living and lowest maintenance houses you can own.
In Tucson, there are five predominant ranch styles; traditional/early, California, Spanish colonial, French provincial and American colonial. The territorial ranch-style house was created by 20th-century architect Josias Joesler.
Q: How do I turn my house into a ranch-style home?
A: Seems easy. Tack on some western dΓ©cor and voila you have a ranch house! Actually, thatβs not how it works. Ranch style is not themed dΓ©cor. Itβs an architectural style. Unless you change the floor plan and roofline of your current house, you cannot have an authentic ranch-style home. It will be difficult to convert it without being disappointed with the result. Many people think that adding eaves with brackets and porches with elephantine columns of faux stone will create a ranch house when itβs actually Tuscan, which by the way, is no longer the trend. If you have a tile-and-stucco, two-story house with a prominent garage faΓ§ade, then ranch style in its true form is not an option.
Itβs important to understand what you can do to your house to enhance rather than disguise it. In other words, donβt put a tutu on a cowboy or chaps on a ballerina. Every house has some essential personality. It has a recognizable shape that strongly indicates its origins. Use the rich materials, textures and colors of its own time. Enhance the house based on its architecture. Let it be true to itself.
Q: I would like to update my 1969 ranch-style home. How do I do that without ruining its original character?
A: First off, do not remove the original materials such as adobe brick covered with plaster, or board and batten wood siding. We often see the βTuscanizationβ of ranch-style houses with smooth stucco veneer, faux stone wainscots and Styrofoam pop-out window frames and corner quoins.
The No. 1 design feature that people remove from their ranch-style home is the sunken living room. The sunken living room didnβt come into fashion until the 1960s, though it really was a part of the original ranch architecture.
Remember, the ranch house was designed based on the land it was built upon. If the land was lower in an area, the split level was incorporated. So, if you have a sunken living room, do not level it off if you want to maintain the original character of the ranch style. Consider transforming a simple ranch into a slightly fancier California ranch.
