DeKalb History Center Contemplating the Ranch House
February 5, 2010 | 3:05 pm
What can the ranch house teach us?
That question, presented to a historian, architect, or planner will garner three (or more!) very different responses.
- Its long and low form is a direct result of its suburban environment.
- Its interior spaces document the American family’s desire for larger interior spaces.
- The ranch’s simplified architectural style, evolved loosely from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie Style, speaks to the growing desire in the mid-20th century to keep the cost of construction down .
On Wednesday, March 24th at noon, the DeKalb History Center will dedicate an entire Lunch & Learn on one of the most controversial, yet wide-spread house types/styles of the last century: the Ranch House.
All details after the jump! So jump!
Photo of a “typical ranch house in Belvedere Park” courtesy of the DeKalb History Center
DECATUR – The DeKalb History Center’s Lunch and Learn Lecture Series continues in March with a presentation on the Ranch House in DeKalb County. Richard Cloues, unit manager & deputy state historic preservation officer for Georgia’s Historic Preservation Division will begin the presentation with the history of the Ranch House in Georgia.
Melissa Forgey, Executive Director for the DeKalb History Center, will present the results DHC’s recent look at this mid-century housing type. The “Ranch House Initiative” was developed by the DeKalb History Center with the support of Commissioner Jeff Rader in an effort to understand the ranch house boom that occurred in nearly every part of DeKalb County throughout the mid to late 20th century. In addition to an overview of the county’s history during this time period, the presentation will focus on four notable ranch neighborhoods in DeKalb: Northwoods, Sargent Hills, Briarpark Court and Belvedere Park.
The lecture is Wednesday, March 24 at 12:00 noon at the Old Courthouse on the Square and is free of charge. Guests are encouraged to bring a lunch to eat during the program.
Photograph: A typical DeKalb County Ranch house in Belvedere Park
They’re saving the real excitement for the split-level. That’s where the action is.
Not any worse than referring to a mid-century shed as a bungalow.
In Decatur I like to refer to them as Ranchelo’s.
Someday we’ll be nostalgic about “learning cottages” too. Turn of the (21st) century school buildings will be torn down and replaced by the “classic trailer style”.
Controversial? In what way?
As with any architecture, the ranch form has its compelling examples (Frank Lloyd Wright effectively invented the ranch home, after all) and bastard offshoots. It’s a style that’s become shorthand for “vanilla tract home suburbia,” but it can be done in a way that makes even the most curmudgeonly architecture snob raise an eyebrow.
I’m a craftsman bungalow lover (as are many Decatur residents), and I have no doubt our home was once considered a plain-jane, ho-hum, starter home. Now it’s part of a local historical district, potentially a national one. So you have to keep things in perspective.
An article on the architectural anomaly of ranch home. From the article:
“No one builds ranch houses or split-levels anymore. Picture windows and carports are gone, and so are breezeways. Home buyers’ affair with modernistic design is over. When I leaf through a directory of one big home builder’s current models, I notice that all the houses have similar architectural features: pitched roofs, gables, dormers, bay windows, keystones, shutters, porches, and paneled doors. Americans’ fondness for such conventional imagery is characterized by some critics as nostalgic and retrograde. In fact, it represents a long domestic tradition that extends to colonial New England and Virginia. In that history, the brief fling with the rancher was an anomaly.”
http://www.slate.com/id/2163970/
We love to call renovated ranches with big new second stories “Ranch-ions”
I kid the ranch. I own one myself in Oak Grove area, and love it. I know it takes away the low-maintenance aspect, but I love how many of older red brick ones are starting to be painted in great earth-tone colors. A nice way to freshen up and differentiate it. And bonus, the painted ones seem to sell faster too. I predict a nice renaissance for the poor belittled ranch. Easy, breezy, one level living, baby!
Saw one very near Decatur at Halloween, with lots of decorations and a sign at the edge of the yard, “Beware – Haunted Ranch House”.
I use to hate them, I grew up in one and always wanted a two story house with character…now as an adult i kinda think it would be nice not to have stairs. There are certanlly ways to add some nice character to them. I think I could one day live in a ranch again.