There are three reasons to be alarmed about the “vast expanse of ranch houses going up every split second,” a reader wrote to the editor of Christian Century magazine in May 1956. Reason No. 1 the reader said, was no room for children. (That was, of course, an exaggeration. One child could be tucked away somewhere.) No. 2: No room for books. No. 3: No room for guests.
Most ranches did come with Lilliputian dimensions, but builders nonetheless churned them out by the thousands after World War II. Loosely based on the 19th Century southwestern adobe, incorporating Frank Lloyd Wright’s horizontal lines, and “modernized” by California designer Clifford May, the tract ranch had a plain-Jane, sometimes sterile, look punctuated by sporadic wrought-iron railings or window shutters.
Although claustrophobic by today’s standards, Midwesterners considered their ranches “new, open, stylish, imported from California,” recalls retired Glenview architect Coder Taylor.
In the 1930s and ’40s, architects–especially in California–were promoting their ranch designs, architect and author John Milnes Baker notes in his book “American House Styles.” Lifestyle magazines, such as Sunset, were filled with the designs. When veterans returned from World War II and married, they wanted this “new style.”
The 1950s builder put up ranches by the thousands to meet this demand. While the mass-produced ranches were not as spacious and luxurious as those in the magazines, they were bigger and offered more security than the city apartments and shared family homes that the men had left when they went overseas.
And, most important, the ranches were new.
So efficient was the ’50s ranch, that St. Charles architect Michael Dixon a few years ago used one–his own starter home–as a model for a mass-housing project he designed for Nigeria.
Land beyond the cities was plentiful, so these ground-huggers sprawled–in direct relation to the size of their mortgages–on spacious lots. As streetcars retired, ranch owners added carports to shelter their Chevys.
In the 1970s, the veterans’ children–the Baby Boomers–started buying their own homes. But they wanted more square footage; the 10-foot by 10-foot bedrooms they once shared with siblings weren’t big enough for their children.
That demand led to a change in how new houses looked. Builders eager to please the Boomers couldn’t offer stepless houses with limitless square footage; even sprawling ranches could sprawl only so far as suburban land prices soared.
So builders filled their brochures with two-story models.
“It was cheaper for them to build more home on less land,” says architect and land planner Pete Pointner of Planning Resources Inc. in Wheaton. “A two-story home costs less to build per square foot than a ranch because of the costs of `hat and boots’–roof, foundation, basement. Yet, you still saw ranches in rural areas where land cost less.”
It wasn’t just the cost of the land that soared; the cost of creating the suburb or neighborhood multiplied, too.
“It cost more to turn raw land into developed lots–sewer, water, electricity, roads, plus police/park/school fees,” says Roger Mankedick, executive vice president of Palatine-based Concord Homes.
Nationwide, from 1977 to 1994, the percent of ranches among new, single-family homes dropped 12 percent in the West, 20 percent in the South and 21 percent in the Northwest, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Yet, in the Midwest, ranches dropped only 7 percent. They fell in favor, yet refused to ride into the sunset.
The ’90s ranch is bigger (2,500 square feet is typical among Chicago-area builders), loaded with the kind of amenities that would knock the socks off June Cleaver, and free of the hallways, walls and spindle-topped half-walls that made its predecessor boxy.
Countryside-based Gallagher & Henry’s typical ranch has three big bedrooms, 2 1/2 luxurious loos, a great room/media room and a first-floor laundry, says Dick Greenwood, director of sales and marketing.
“Unlike the ’50s ranch, it has cathedral ceilings, Palladian windows, architectural details and luxurious master bathrooms. These are no run-of-the-mill designs,” says Greenwood.
The open floor plan is what attracted Susan Davis, 28, and her husband, Michael, 31, of Sugar Grove to their new ranch, built earlier this year by Winfield-based Hometown Builders Inc.
“I can stand at the kitchen sink and see everything that’s going on while I cook and entertain. I don’t feel isolated,” says Susan.
Although the Davises own one of a few ranches in a sea of two-story homes, their builder says they are not alone in their preference.
“Three years ago, we didn’t even build ranches. Then young couples like the Davises started asking for them,” says Eva Badway, Hometown’s co-owner.
Builders report that childless couples–young and old–top the list of ranch buyers, while those with young children still prefer upstairs bedrooms.
Alice and George Prester of Darien are typical of the empty-nesters who choose the ranch style. After raising her family in a Chicago two-story, Alice told her builder: “No more stairs.”
Others build ranches in anticipation of future needs. Steve and Carol Seifert, both 44, sold the two-story where they spent their “little-kid years” hauling toys and laundry up and down two flights of stairs. With one child in college and the other on his way, the Seiferts recently built a 3,000-square-foot ranch in Naperville.
“We figure that, eventually, all of the other Baby Boomers will want to trade their two-stories for ranches. We’ll already have ours,” says Steve.
Although some builders ignore the ranch market, most recognize it as an emerging, if not refusing-to-die, segment. Ten years ago, ranches accounted for 10 percent of Gallagher & Henry’s sales in the south and southwest suburbs; today, they account for 23 percent, says Greenwood.
“Many of today’s two-story-home buyers are actually closet ranchers,” says Mankedick. “They say they want ranches, but settle for two-story homes after they realize they cost less for the same amount of square feet.”
Pointner predicts even more ranches on the horizon as Boomers take in sail.
“But land is limited, so we’ll see less lawn,” he said. “Land planners, architects and landscape architects will have to work together to create private spaces such as small courtyards. Site planning and the orientation of windows and rooms will become more important.”
So go ahead, Boomers: Relegate the pillbox hat and Schwinn Black Phantom to the Museum of ’50s Relics. But don’t jettison the ranch house.
Even that critic who wrote to Christian Century so many years ago conceded, “It is easier on aged feet not to climb the 29 steps 10 times a day to the Mt. Everest of the second floor.”
