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!

“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/

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.