Ranch Style Houses of the 1960s

Evolution

• The American ranch home of the 1960s descended from the ranch architecture of the Spanish Colonial Southwest. Single-story buildings with deep overhanging hip roofs appeared beginning in the 1850s in the western United States. When the single-story form met the Mission style of Greene and Greene and the Prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright, a completely American architecture for the middle class began to emerge in farmer's fields from California to Long Island. Throughout the 1950s, three brothers built revolutionary Levittowns of small Cape Cod cottages and sleek modern ranch homes on winding streets with large common areas.

Floor Plans

• Ranch homes of the 1960s were small by pre-war standards, 900 to 1,200 square feet; rooms were arranged two deep and three to four wide. Its interior space was more open than the little rooms of the Victorian Era. Dining areas combined with kitchens to form a larger space. The dining room, when it existed as a separate room, connected the kitchen with the living room. Two or three bedrooms occupied one end of the house. Garages or carports occupied one end of the house rather than standing as a separate structure. By the end of the decade, larger ranches featured L- or U-shaped floor plans.

Exteriors

• Large "picture windows" replaced multipaned lights and provided improved visibility for parents to watch children as they played outdoors. By the 1960s, casement windows became wooden sashes and flat sides broke out, reflecting larger, asymmetrically arranged rooms. Windows wrapped around corners and half brick or stone facades dressed up wood or composition board clapboards. Wide, low, Prairie-style roof lines created deep soffits.

Lifestyle

• Returning soldiers and their spouses who had worked in war industries or joined women's military branches had earned a relaxed lifestyle for which 1960s ranch homes were designed. Broad patios moved the emphasis from the front yard to the back and extended areas for neighborly entertaining. Common areas added between lots in Levitt developments added a parklike quality to small backyards. The living room began to shrink during the decade, yielding its space to a room for family activities and informal entertaining.

New Technologies

• The momentum for innovation begun during the war found domestic application in the ranch homes of the new suburbs. Private-line telephones and television sets provided in-home communication and entertainment, and vinyl flooring simplified cleaning for servantless families. Plate glass picture windows and early thermopane windows made possible large sliding glass doors that opened onto outdoor living spaces.