The 1950s’ ranch house, that boxlike mainstay of suburbia, has never garnered much respect, with its modest aluminum siding, linoleum floors and itty-bitty bedrooms.
But leaders of Rolling Meadows, although acknowledging that the tract house is no architectural gem, are proudly announcing plans to build a reproduction of a 1953 model by the city’s main developer, Kimball Hill, and open it as a historical museum.
The home likely will feature authentic white-metal kitchen cabinets, a large picture window and a gravel driveway leading to no garage.
Go ahead now, laugh.
The “Leave It to Beaver” decade immediately summons images, to some at least, of the functional and practical: Sunbeam toasters and Formica table tops. To others, though, the ranch house is intensely symbolic of blue-collar pioneers delighting in finally owning a piece of the American dream after the traumas of war. Even if the washer and dryer were in the kitchen.
“The children and the grandchildren of the people who bought the house can snicker at the architecture, but for the people who moved into those homes, they represent a rite of passage,” said Michael Phillips, an urban historian studying the 1950s and 1960s at the University of Texas at Austin.
For many, the ranch home and its appliances stir comfortable childhood memories. Think avocado-colored refrigerators, blond furniture and front-porch milk delivery.
“There is a level of kitsch, and it’s appreciated in the same way as pet rocks and Hula-Hoops,” Phillips said. “It’s the neighborhood equivalent of going to Graceland.”
In Rolling Meadows, 40 percent of the population of 23,140 is age 50 or older. For many of them, ranch homes provided an opportunity for their families to leave Chicago apartments and partitioned basements.
Even as late as 1970, newcomers to Rolling Meadows such as Suzanne Jungmann, now 74, marveled at the privilege of mowing their own lawns.
Jungmann, an alderman who heads the city’s newly formed Historical Committee, still lives in a 1955 ranch house that she and her husband bought after leaving Rogers Park.
“I thought, `It’s mine, and I own it,’ ” she recalled.
Her home, like most in the neighborhood, has been modified over the years. The wood frame siding gave way to aluminum, the brown tile floors were covered by hardwood and carpet, and a breezeway and family room were added for extra space.
Because so many homes have been altered, the City Council decided it would be easier to build a house rather than renovate an existing one for the museum.
The council recently approved donating land for the project, to be built on Campbell Street, but it will rely on donations for materials and 1950s’ artifacts. Fundraising is to begin in earnest early this year.
The Historical Committee intends to collect oral histories from some of its oldest residents to supplement displays in the house.
Kimball Hill Homes developed Rolling Meadows as one of the nation’s early planned communities. The company will work with city leaders to ensure that the ranch museum is as authentic as possible.
“If they do this right, and we will help them do it right, it will be a tribute to my father’s creative imagination,” said David Kimball Hill Jr., owner of the Rolling Meadows-based corporation.
He recalled leveling crawl spaces for his father, Kimball Hill, who died in 1993 after building the majority of the city’s 6,000 single-family homes.
Rolling Meadows’ idea is part of a larger resurgence of interest in 1950s’ memorabilia and products nationwide, from costume jewelry to linoleum flooring.
Helen Schubert, spokeswoman for the Illinois chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers, said remodeling ranch homes also is on the upswing, partly out of convenience.
The elderly are more comfortable in homes with one floor, and their children are adding on for spare bedrooms, offices and living areas.
“These Boomers are not moving out of their houses,” Schubert said. “They’re putting in amenities such as whirlpools. They’re adding space for a child not leaving home or a parent, an elderly person.”
Thomas Waldron Jr., 78, is among those enthusiastic for a museum. He moved into one of the original Rolling Meadows ranch homes in 1954, where he remains today. He and his wife bought the 1,200 square-foot, three-bedroom house for about $12,000. The couple put down a $3,000 deposit and made $75 monthly mortgage payments.
His children, now grown, can’t understand how the family fit in the old ranch.
“We didn’t know how small the house was,” Waldron said. “Everyone else had the same thing. We had bunk beds. I added on a good-size family room and another bathroom. We had a big kitchen– it’s 12 foot by 15. That’s where we spent most of our time.”
He recounted how wealthier residents in neighboring Palatine and Arlington Heights reacted with dismay as builders constructed–assembly-line style–the ranch homes. There were three models to be built along curvy streets because, officials believe, that made it harder for visitors to glimpse around the bends and see the same style homes repeating themselves.
Alice Sinkevitch, executive director of Chicago’s chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said she finds Rolling Meadows’ idea intriguing.
In 1999, Park Forest opened a house during its 50th anniversary, commemorating the 1950s.
“Ours is the space-hog generation,” she said, referring to modern-day homes that dwarf ranch homes. “I think people would be fascinated by it, and it would be a good lesson on perspective, on what people had been through in terms of housing situations.”
For those who scoff at the idea that history can begin only 50 years ago, Tim Samuelson, curator of architecture at the Chicago Historical Society, offered this observation:
“Every era goes through a period when the artifacts are too new to be old and too old to be new,” he said. “People look back on it and may smirk, and say, `Oh, I remember that stuff. It’s out of date. It’s junk.’
“If enough time goes by, you have new generations . . . and it looks pretty good again,” he said.
Samuelson, who is restoring his 1949 Mies van der Rohe apartment with 1950s’ artifacts, finds beauty in his Sunbeam toaster, from its shiny chrome top to the crumb tray that pulls out from underneath.
