Ranch-Style Architecture

Ranch-style architecture, also called American ranch, California ranch, rambler or rancher, is a domestic architectural style that originated in the United States, marked by a long, low, close to the ground profile and an open, informal floor plan that blended modernist design ideas with the imagery of the American West. The style first appeared in residential building during the 1920s but became genuinely widespread only with the booming postwar middle class of the 1940s through the 1970s, when it became closely associated with the large scale tract housing developments of the American Southwest. A typical ranch house is single story, built on an asymmetrical rectangular, L shaped or U shaped plan with a low pitched roofline, an attached garage, large windows and sliding glass doors opening onto a patio, and simple open living spaces kept separate from bedrooms; homes built from the early 1960s onward added more dramatic features such as varied roof lines, cathedral ceilings and sunken living rooms. The style's popularity declined later in the twentieth century as neo-eclectic styles came into fashion, though preservation efforts and renewed interest among younger buyers have since revived attention to surviving examples.