Americans have been infatuated with the automobile for more than a century–a love affair that has radically altered transit patterns and pathways. What’s more, our homes, neighborhoods and cities have been reshaped by its by-product, the garage, a structure that continues to make its mark on real estate.
“Garages are almost the first thing we design now,” says Mark Scheurer, an architect in Newport Beach, Calif. “Before the car was such a factor, you’d concentrate on floor plans. Now you lay out the streets, garages and driveways–the house gets the leftover space.”
The shift in approach has come about in the last five years, says Scheurer, “when the three-car garage took over as the norm and not a luxury item.”
The garage’s evolution–and resulting influence–has been a slow but steady process beginning in the late 1880s with the first automobiles. In some cases, existing carriage houses were converted for these horseless carriages, but many car owners elected to build new structures.
“The needs of the car were very different than the needs of the horse. You had a new type of building that had to evolve,” says Tim Samuelson, curator of architecture at the Chicago Historical Society.
Only the wealthy could afford cars at first, and from those deep pockets sprang some elaborate edifices.
One prominent Minneapolis merchant created an 80-by-60-foot garage shaped in a semicircle like a roundhouse with interiors lined in glazed brick. A turntable directed cars to five different stalls and the garage housed a gas pump, an automotive shop and a washroom. The floor was composed of mosaic tile, except for the car stalls, which were made of marble.
Certainly, not everyone went to this extreme; many early garages amounted to nothing more than potting sheds.
Yet a number of engineers and architects were among the first car fanciers, observes Paul Larson, an architectural historian in St. Paul.
“For them, it was a bit of adventure to design appropriate shelter,” he says.
Another unique garage was built on a hillside property, connecting to the house via a tunnel.
After Henry Ford began producing the Model T, car ownership became more common, and demand for garages increased because, particularly for city dwellers, it was impractical to keep the partially open vehicles outdoors, exposed to the elements. In response, an entire industry mushroomed to supply inexpensive shelter: Books and architectural plans devoted to garages were made available, kits were created, and Sears Roebuck & Co. even sold garages through its mail-order catalog.
These new mainstream garages were simple structures, often made of wood with sheet metal cladding.
“Still, an effort was made to make garages look nice,” says Samuelson. “After all, people were still giving up part of their yard.”
Gas stations soon became prevalent, eliminating the need to maintain a pump and repair equipment on the premises. Yet, due to the noise and smell associated with early automobiles, garages remained detached outbuildings, sequestered behind residences.
“The garage really changed the landscape of alleys and backyards,” observes Samuelson.
By the 1920s, urban backyards had been transformed from vacant lots into “walls of garages” says Samuelson, noting that experimentation with different styles of car shelter fostered a sort of “architectural ragtime.”
After World War I, one Chicago developer sought to take advantage of the housing shortage by selling lots that featured a brick garage. The garage was meant to be used as temporary shelter until a house could be built on the property.
The project was dubbed “The Garlow” (a hybrid of “garage” and “bungalow”). Unfortunately, except for one or two properties, once people moved into the Garlow, no one bothered to build a house.
The result was several street blocks with recessed homes, or Garlows, and expansive front yards.
By the late ’30s, however, garages began moving closer to residences.
“The mechanics had improved. Cars weren’t as smelly and people were confident they wouldn’t explode,” explains Samuelson.
Economies of scale made garages attractive to developers while convenience made them compelling to consumers. As postwar suburbia blossomed, attached garages quickly became the norm. “The architectural development of the garage followed hand-in-hand with the physical and sociological changes of cities and suburbs,” adds Samuelson.
The shift of population to the suburbs increased our dependency on cars, which led to the acquisition of multiple vehicles per household. Garages began to grow bigger. Two-car garages became the new rule-of-thumb.
This swelling of car shelter has sparked a reversal in attitudes. Where garages were once a status symbol of sorts, today they have become almost politically incorrect.
Part of the backlash reflects anti-growth proponents who link large garages with the less desirable aspects of new development. New urbanists and neotraditionalists (disciples of gridded street systems, alleys, front porches, and town centers) are equally unhappy about garages being front and center.
For consumers, garages have come to represent “cookie-cutter approaches to housing,” says Jim Constantine of Community Planning and Research in Princeton, N.J. “Punched-out garages and driveways tend to emphasize this.”
Two themes that have surfaced in consumer research conducted by Constantine’s firm are: “I’d like a little house with my garage” and “I’m tired of seeing garages with a house attached.”
Indeed, the three-car garage, today’s norm, averages between 600 and 650 square feet.
“That’s a healthy percentage of the house’s footprint,” points out Scheurer. If the garage is attached and faces the street, it can represent 50 percent or more of the house’s front elevation.
Make no mistake: It’s not that people want smaller garages, they just want them to be less conspicuous. In response, architects are practicing some sleights of hand to minimize the garage, if not make it disappear:
– Breaking up a three-car-garage by placing a two-car garage on one side of the house and a one-car unit on the other side;
– making a two-car entrance with a tandem stall, so the garage can still accommodate three vehicles;
– recessing the garage and integrating it better with the house architecture via columns and gables;
– designing driveways that begin as one lane and widen farther back;
– using textured pavers or asphalt in lieu of concrete to make the driveway less noticeable;
– installing garage doors with some sort of pattern to break down the mammoth scale of a three-car shelter;
– detaching the garage and moving it behind the house;
– and treating the garage as a wing and mounting its doors on the side instead of facing the street.
Ironically, at the same time homeowners are trying to make the exteriors of garages less conspicuous, they’re going upscale on the inside. Concrete floors are being painted, cabinets and shelving are being added, and walls are being paneled or, at least, covered with sheet rock or gypsum board.
OK, so it’s not exactly the Taj Mahal. Still, the utilitarian facelift results in garages that are “a lot nicer than they used to be,” says Don Jacobs, a principal of JBZ Architects in Newport Beach, Calif.
Jacobs attributes the trend to an appreciation for details: “After investing a lot of money into their house, people don’t want to drive into the garage and see studs exposed.”
Other design experts chalk it up to time management: “All of our lives are busy and cluttered. We have all these toys . . . we have to line them up and put them away,” says Carson Looney, a principal with Looney Ricks Kiss Architects in Memphis.
There’s also a security aspect to upgrading. Keeping possessions stowed out-of-sight may reduce the chances for theft.
The evolution of the garage is not only about form, its function has also undergone considerable change throughout the years.
When architect Sarah Susanka was living in California, she was fascinated to see garages used as a facsimile for front porches: “People would open the garage door, put out their lawn chairs and hang out. Their social structure was oriented around the garage door and driveway,” says Susanka, a principal with Mulfinger, Susanka, Mahady & Partners in Minneapolis. This was a considerable contrast to Susanka’s native England, where garages are used almost exclusively as shelter for the car.
Besides serving as social centers, garages are frequently transformed into retail centers when garage sales recycle trash into treasures. For the entrepreneurially inclined, garages have doubled as business incubators, nurturing inspiration into entire industries.
Let’s not overlook storage. Especially in areas of the country where houses are not equipped with basements or attics, the garage becomes a repository for just about everything. Sometimes storage even takes over, forcing the car out of its home into exile on the driveway.
In fact, the garage’s role as a storage center has escalated exponentially in recent years. Susanka notes that average stall width has grown to 12 feet from 10 feet in the last couple of decades, but the extra girth is not for the automobile.
“I have a lot of people who want a four-car garage and they don’t have four cars,” observes Chicago architect Linda Searl.
With advanced telecommunications and a continued preference for cocooning, one might think Americans would be less dependent on their cars and garages. Not so, says Bernard Beck, a sociology professor at Northwestern University in Evanston.
The high divorce rate means a lot of fragmented families, says Beck. Joint custody of children translates into “a lot of vehicles going from one place to another, a lot of delivering going on.”
Other sociological shifts have put new demands on garages. As Baby Boomers cope with boomerang kids, elderly parents and telecommuting, garages are being used for additional living space.
“It doesn’t cost that much to put a second-floor unit up there,” says Jacobs. The value of going double-decker becomes even more attractive in light of shrinking lots, he adds.
Two decades ago, a typical subdivision lot was 7,000 square feet. Today, lots average 4,000 to 5,000 square feet and can be as small as 2,400 square feet.
Gazing into the future, garage gurus find the crystal ball a bit clouded.
“I’m not convinced the four-car garage is the way of the future,” says Susanka. “We’ve come to an aesthetic screeching point. I don’t think garages can get much bigger.”
Solutions to improving the garage’s image are being developed, but are not fully deployed, say experts.
A blast from the past–alleys–are coming back, allowing garages to be detached and moved to the rear of the lot.
“The alternative is three-story houses where the garage is the first floor,” says Scheurer. “On the West Coast, it’s easier to go up than down (to build a basement).”
“Alleys are definitely a trend–a good viable trend–but alleys are only one solution,” says Scheurer, explaining that it’s not advantageous to build alleys everywhere. “It just adds more roads into the system.”
Although Scheurer favors alleys and other neotraditional concepts, he ultimately advocates improved community planning with more mass transit to force people to lessen their dependency on cars.
“It’s easier to duplicate the past than plan for the future,” says Scheurer. “If you leave it up to the consumer, the consumer will always be in love with the car.”
