The series starts in 1908, with cottages and $98 hunting lodges and one house, at about $600. As the years progress we see bungalows, capes and Dutch Colonials…barracks during WWII…on into the 50s. The images here are from ‘54, the last year for catalogs posted, but the bio says Aladdin, which was based in Bay City, Mich., manufactured homes until 1981.

Here’s some history about the firm:

• Begun in 1906 by two brothers, Otto and William Sovereign, the family-owned firm continued to manufacture houses until 1981. Over the firm’s long history it sold over 75,000 homes to both individual and corporate customers.

• The records of the Aladdin Company were donated to the Clarke Historical Library in 1996. The almost complete run of company catalogs, full set of sales records, over 15,000 post-World War II architectural drawings, and various other company records create an extraordinary historical resource.

• The Aladdin Company records are open for use by the public, having been arranged and described through a grant made by the National Endowment for the Humanities. (Mount Pleasant, by the way, is on the far western side of the state, just north of I-94 where it starts to bend around the Lake. Full-text copies of the annual sales catalogs were scanned through a grant by the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs.

Many thanks to all these great folks! I for one cannot wait to start wading through every single catalog. I love love love this every-person kind of house…I am so excited! My guilty secret, though: I seriously thought about not posting this story, afraid I’d never get you back, like, you’ll be Alice fallen down the rabbit hole into retro-wonderland. But there. I’ve gone and done it anyway.

View the website and catalogs here. … I’ll miss you all.

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To celebrate the momentous occasion of Barbie’s 50th birthday – today, March 9 – I asked Pat Henry — my good friend and editor of Fashion Doll Quarterly — to talk about one of our favorite girls. Pat is uniquely qualified. Like me, she played incessantly with Barbies growing up in the 60s and early 70s. I played with my Barbies til I was at least 13. When I asked Mom for the convertible for Christmas I recall she was seriously concerned.

Pat took the whole thing even further – becoming a successful NY fashion stylist and now, editor of a magazine all about fashion dolls as well as a teacher at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in NYC.

And interspersed with our interview – images of Barbie’s Dream House, redesigned in mid mod style by Fashion Doll Quarterly’s doyenne of doll decor Maryann Roy.

1. Tell us about yourself, your magazine and your Barbie-expert credentials.

From the age of three, the only toy I was interested in was Barbie(TM) doll. By the time I reluctantly gave up my collection at thirteen, I had over fifty dolls that I had individually named and kept in pristine condition. Sadly, I gave them away, and I think perhaps that served as impetus to collect vintage dolls as an adult.

Barbie influenced my love of fashion and fashion photography, which led to a degree in Fashion Marketing at F.I.T. and my career as a fashion stylist. My mother, when asked what I actually did as a stylist would say, “She is still playing Barbies, they are just real now– but they still don’t eat.”

One day, shopping at FAO Schwarz for a baby gift, I became aware of the collector world, coming upon a porcelain reproduction vintage Barbie doll (a 1961 Bubblecut (hairstyle) wearing “Red Flare” a Balanciaga inspired red velvet coat and hat). My husband, seeing my excitement, went one better, buying me a vintage #3 ponytail Barbie for my birthday. He found the doll in an East Village store called Love Saves The Day, long before eBay and Yahoo collector groups were on the web. The thrill of the hunt, finding vintage dolls and clothes in antique shops and yard sales, became a fun hobby and an extension of my love of fashion. My Barbie doll collection was my personal miniature fashion museum of the fifties and sixties.

2. Barbie: So what role did she play in your life – that got you where you are today?

It was Barbie doll that made me love fashion and the fashion industry. I loved the glamour and travel that was part of the fashion model’s life. (Barbie’s original vocation was “Teenage fashion model”.) I grew up to be a fashion stylist, dressing real life “Barbies”, like my mother said. My experience working with some of the best fashion photographers in the world piqued my interest in photography, and I began collecting books on fashion photography. Once again, my husband picked up on my interest and bought me a camera. I had no formal training, but the things I learned standing next to photographers on a set gave me a sense of how to set up basic lighting and compose a photo. But I had nothing to shoot. So, the dolls became my models and the dining room table became the studio. We like to joke and call it “Industria North” (Industria is a well known photo studio in SoHo).

Finding a forum to share these photographs was a bit tricky because my style was more editorial than product driven, as most companies preferred to shoot the dolls, so there wasn’t much call for me to do this commercially. There were a few doll magazines on the market but they were very simple and collector driven, using collectors’ own photos. I wanted to recreate Vogue in miniature. So Fashion Doll Quarterly was launched five years ago. I had a great sense of satisfaction when we included in an article on Bratz for the Hollywood Reporter, and the journalist wrote, “FDQ invokes Vogue with its high fashion photography.” Having worked as the Bookings Editor at Vogue many years ago, that was a very gratifying thing to read.

3. Has Barbie used her power for good – or for evil?

I think the more interesting question is whether pundits and marketers have used Barbie doll for good or evil. Barbie doll is still a toy for children. There are high-end collectible versions specifically for adults, and there is a huge cottage industry of independent artists who use Barbie as muse, but “she” doesn’t have much say in the matter, does she?

I have always found it odd, if not downright confounding, that certain feminist writers think Barbie is “dangerous”, or that a plastic toy leads children down a path of destructive behavior or eating disorders. Barbie is the ultimate feminist. She owns the Dream House, the car, the country cabin, the airplane and the recording studio. It’s about her and her friends, her ambitions. She is the college graduate, doctor, veterinarian, archeologist, President of the United States. Ken is the accessory. She never officially married or had children. If that doesn’t tell a young girl that she can do everything herself, and as well as any man, I don’t know what does.

Like Madonna, Barbie has become a touchstone for our pop culture. She reflects the zeitgeist of any given time, through her constant reinvention. Barbie was reinvented and revamped back when Madonna was just a “Skipper”. We respond to Barbie doll based on our own comfort, or discomfort with what is being presented. As Barbie doll has transitioned into a world famous product with global awareness (three Barbie dolls are sold every second), she transcends debate and takes on iconic status, like Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. And, of course– Madonna.

4. Tell us 5 things about Barbie that we might not know.

• Barbie first ran for President in 1992 (sixteen years before Hillary Clinton), on a platform of educational excellence, animal rights and opportunities for girls
• Over one billion fashions have been produced for Barbie and her friends, with over 105 million yards of fabrics used, making Mattel one of the largest apparel manufacturers in the world.
• Barbie has had more than a billion pairs of shoes.
• Placed head to toe, Barbie dolls and family members since 1959 would circle the earth more than seven times.
• An original 1959 Barbie doll in mint condition has sold for up to $25,570.

5. What do you think that Barbie has taught us about ourselves – as women, men and a nation.

The Barbie doll is one of the world’s best-known products of all time, like Coke and Kleenex. Johnny Depp was recently quoted about enjoying time with his daughter sitting on the floor “playing Barbies”. Her name has become a generic term for all dolls, as well as a derisive term regarding any woman who wears too much make-up or has fake breasts. She has been the favorite toy for several generations of children who have been saturated with pop culture, celebrity and instant gratification. But you cannot discount the doll’s influence in creating communities of collectors who share each other’s company, creating charities and educational programs, and releasing their inner artist, using the doll as the medium. She has also informed three generation of women on how to navigate the world as an independent thinker and doer. The slogan for Barbie is “We girls can do anything”. She a small plastic mirror to who we are at any given time.

6. Do you still play with Barbies?

In the sense that I work with the dolls as models and subjects, I would say yes. But now that covering the Barbie line and Barbie collectors is part of my business, Barbie doll is also a client. A few years ago, I had the chance to visit Mattel and see their design offices and photo studio, and the three-year old in me was beyond excited. But the adult magazine publisher got a pretty big kick out of it, too!

Barbie doll’s official birthday is March 9th, the day she was officially presented at Toy Fair in 1959. Coincidently, this is Beatrice Alexander’s birthday, also known as Madame Alexander, the founder of the well known doll company based in Harlem. It’s a big day for small dolls.

Thank you, Pat, and Maryann, for your great generosity in sharing!

Tomorrow: Sumac Sue’s Barbie memories…

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Is my house a ranch house? A colonial? A colonial-ranch? A year into the blog, I’m pretty sure in understanding that my own house is a mix…but this holiday week I’ve been doing more research into the true academic terminology, if there is such a thing. To start, here’s a story from the National Park Service that lays out how the ranch home developed, and which gives us the clues to telling whether our homes are truly ranches – or not. Some of my key takeaways:

• A ranch is defined by its livability, flexibility, and unpretentiousness. It has a low sloping stance and roofline and is designed to bring the outside in.
• Yes, it has one story. But not all one-story houses are ranch homes.
• Ranch-style, ranch bungalow, ranchette, rambler, California colonial, and even ranch burger — all synonyms for “ranch.” I also know there are further sub-categories: Such as ‘Cinderella ranch’ aka ‘Storybook ranch.’

One last point: I still would like to see the actual data proving that ranch homes were the dominant style throughout the 50s. I think that cape/colonial homes may truly have been their match – especially when you consider that many of these homes might be incorrectly called ranches just because they are on a single story.

Read on for a serious “NY Times style” Sunday magazine story  —->

Ranch Houses Are Not All the Same
David Bricker
Architectural Historian
California Department of Transportation
San Bernardino, California

Introduction
With nearly constant rumbling and clattering sounds of construction, much of American suburbia was transformed during the bustling postwar period. Vast acres of land were subdivided for a multitude of new housing tracts. Their varied patterns of streets, yards, and detached single-family houses rapidly changed the appearance of the semi-rural and rural landscape beyond most downtown areas. Residential building for much of the period between 1945 and 1970 was characterized by a competitive sales market for such “tract” houses, since the demand for affordable housing remained relatively steady and public and private financing was offered at reasonable rates.1 By far the most predominant design, especially in California, was the one-story ranch house and the informal way of living that it sought to project.

Tracing its architectural heritage from adobes and wood-frame-and-sheathed ranch buildings built during the more rugged nineteenth century, the postwar California ranch house quickly attained national appeal, just as the bungalow had previously. An observation made in the late 1950s by the cultural historian Russell Lynes suggests why the ranch house appeared so popular: “Nobody could mind it. It was not experimental enough to be considered ‘ugly’ by even the most conservative, and it was not tricked-up enough to be considered ‘ugly’ by the experimental. It was merely ‘nice.’ It was ‘unobjectionable.’ It was ‘homey,’ and it was said to be ‘practical.’”2

The rather benign character of a ranch house also led to other comments at the time, many of a more critical nature. For example, the architectural historian and preservationist James Marston Fitch apparently felt uncomfortable with its sweeping popularity when he wrote: “ … there was at first, a tendency to dismiss it as too exotic: ‘It’s all right for California but it wouldn’t work here.’ Now we are at the other extreme–building ‘California-type ranch houses’ in every state of the Union regardless of their fitness to the site and the climate.3

Even the name itself has been broadly identified over the years. Ranch-style, ranch bungalow, ranchette, rambler, California colonial, and less than flattering names like ranch burger are just a sampling. Whether embraced or ridiculed, the immense number of ranch houses built in California and elsewhere clearly conveys a widespread popularity after the Second World War. While the expected context for a ranch house was its snug appearance on a landscaped parcel in the suburbs, the ranch house was portrayed in other ways, too, such as a child’s playhouse or doll house, as the setting for advertisements or for the entertainment industry, or as a popular icon in the museum and collector’s world of 1960s painting.

Today the ranch house is less popular than it was in the postwar years. In fact, reactions of increased disdain have become somewhat predictable. A couple of general factors help explain why such views have
been expressed: first, it is essentially out-of-fashion except for a small contingent of admirers; and second, some studies tend to perceive the ranch house as being representative of a socially less enlightened period
in our history.4 Yet throughout the twentieth century, the ranch house has been like a chameleon, adaptable to almost any condition of design, materials, and method of construction, while still maintaining its low
horizontal scale and recognizable image.

General Characteristics and Overview
In defining the characteristics of a ranch house, it is not surprising that Sunset Magazine took the lead since it has been the long-established voice of western living. Following much coverage of the modern ranch
house and its predecessors in the magazine prior to the Second World War, Sunset Magazine subsequently published its first of two books on the topic in 1946, titled Western Ranch Houses.5 It was assembled as an
architectural pattern book, with an emphasis on illustrations, photographs, and a selective amount of text. The examples were primarily designed before the war by prominent California architects like Cliff May of
Los Angeles and the San Francisco architect William W. Wurster (Wurster, Bernardi, and Emmons).6 May, who was the collaborative author with the magazine’s editorial staff, continued throughout his life to be the
figure most closely associated with the ranch house, in part because of his close association with Sunset Magazine.7 The book was among many publications at the time that promoted the ranch house as suitable
for postwar housing.

Western Ranch Houses stressed three basic concepts about the ranch house rather than discussing its style: livability, flexibility, and an unpretentious character. Coupled with the importance of using climate as an
element of design, these concepts were applied to conditions of the site and orientation of the house. Outdoor living areas extending beyond the house on the same level were also emphasized, so that interior
space merged with the exterior, separated merely by large areas of glass and sliding glass doors. Other typical characteristics included a linear arrangement of rooms, elevations composed asymmetrically, and a
telescopic effect of low wings spreading out from the rectangular core of the plan. And additions and alterations to a ranch house were foreseeable since they were part of its architectural tradition.

By the 1950s, the ranch house had become the predominant choice for detached, single-family residences; a position it held well into the 1960s. Seemingly its range of imagery, informal plans, and inclusion of the
latest household equipment satisfied contemporary preferences and requirements. Such owner satisfaction was especially true of the work of Cliff May. His design for the Robert Power residence (1962-1963) in the
coastal city of Camarillo, north of Los Angeles, illustrates how traditional and modern architectural elements were skillfully combined to create a design that recalls the past instead of simply replicating it. By using post-and-beam construction and an open floor plan, generous amounts of light and space are captured under a low-pitched gable roof.8 Works by other practitioners like Wurster, Bernardi, and Emmons often achieved similar results. The firm’s Williams residence (1956) was designed as a light-filled, airy ranch house set in the rural hills of Portola Valley, near San Francisco.9 Similar in design to these California examples, the Albert Goldmon residence (1957; Goldmon and Rolfe, architects) in Houston, Texas, also illustrates the visual effect of setting a ranch house comfortably low on its site.

Even though the widespread popularity of single-family ranch houses peaked by the late 1960s, examples are still built in California today, primarily at new subdivisions where the style is offered among a selection of period revival houses. In addition, the growing demand for condominiums and retirement housing since the 1970s has led to the construction of multifamily complexes of ranch houses, adding to their ever increasing number.

Historical Development
The essential ingredient of a traditional nineteenth century adobe (often called a ranch house) was its informality of design and functional relationship to the outdoors. A single-story adobe was typically
constructed with one or more long porches (corredors), which provided covered external circulation between the rooms in lieu of hallways. It also served as a transitional layer of living space between the
exterior and interior of the building, and it was oriented toward a private courtyard. Since the late nineteenth century, subsequent interpretations of this architectural element have repeatedly influenced a
romantic image of California architecture and its relationship to the environment.

Writers and architects among others began to recognize the cultural value of California adobes in the late nineteenth century, simultaneous to their fascination with the buildings of the Franciscan missions. Similar
to activity elsewhere in the country, architects in California visited and sketched the region’s architectural past as a means of finding inspiration for new design.10 This interest continued to develop in the twentieth
century; initially apparent in the work of many Arts and Crafts practitioners who recognized the utility and simplicity of traditional ranch houses and the informal character of design that they provided. Architects
like the Pasadena-based Charles and Henry Greene designed some of their wood-frame Craftsman bungalows as low single-story houses oriented around two or three sides of a commodious landscaped
courtyard.11 The residence they designed for Arturo Bandini (1903; no longer extant) in Pasadena was conceived specifically to recall qualities of a California adobe. Other architects and builders designed
comparable low-cost versions of ranch houses, which were meant for mass distribution through building companies, plan services, and pattern books.12

The ranch house continued to broaden in form and characteristics during the 1920s and 1930s, when period revival architecture in California embraced Mediterranean and Hispanic architectural traditions, and the
tradition of its American colonial past. Adding to this mix of imagery, the influence of modern architecture on the design of ranch houses became more apparent by the late 1930s and continued thereafter.
Throughout these decades, such changes were motivated by the sense that ranch houses should be up-todate in terms of design and function; meanwhile, apparent connections to the past gradually decreased.

During the Depression, home ownership programs sponsored by the federal government and various organizations frequently promoted the ranch house as an appropriate design for low-cost housing in
California and the West. For one of its projects in the area of Los Angeles, the U.S. Farm Security Administration (FSA) constructed, in 1935, a group of ranch houses on a tract of subsistence homesteads,
which was laid out to respect the existing character of a former walnut grove. The architect Joseph Weston designed four different houses based on the number of bedrooms, each type having multiple plans and
elevations to ensure variation for the entire development.13

In comparison to this effort by the FSA, some contemporaneous, privately developed subdivisions in Los Angeles consisted of larger ranch houses built on small estate-like parcels that were promoted to middle class
buyers. Rolling Hills (1934 and later; A.E. Hanson, developer/landscape architect) on the Palos Verdes peninsula and Riviera Ranch (1939 and later; Cliff May, architect/builder) in West Los Angeles were among the more prominent examples that were constructed.14 The promotion of each subdivision emphasized the connection to its respective historical land grant made in the nineteenth century, along with the pleasures of the semi-rural landscape and outdoor recreational activities like horseback riding. The proximity of their locations to office and commercial developments was pointed out as well. Stables, paddocks, motor courts, and multicar garages were all carefully designed as integral components of the typically sprawling, suburban residences.

When the federal government imposed limitations on building materials during the Second World War, new housing construction throughout the country was restricted to projects for defense workers. In California where employment opportunities in the aircraft and shipbuilding industries attracted masses of people, defense housing tracts were often constructed with ranch houses, albeit minimal in character. Noted examples like San Lorenzo Village (1944 and later; David D. Bohannon, developer/ builder), located south of Oakland, took the basic features of a ranch house and achieved variation through the different orientation of plans, treatment of elevations, and selection of materials. Construction of the project was well organized, taking advantage of precut lumber and staging areas at the site to ensure timely completion and cost efficiency.15 While the standardization that resulted from such examples was a necessity at the time, this approach to design and construction remained viable and practical for tract developments after the war as well. However, this approach also contributed to criticism of ranch houses, both at the time and subsequently.

The wartime limits on construction caused many American architects, designers, and builders to focus their attention instead on predictions about the design of houses for the postwar period. Discussions about appearance, materials, construction techniques, and furnishings were frequently included in the programs and publications of the American Institute of Architects and the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), founded in 1942 in Washington, D.C. In addition, books such as Elizabeth B. Mock’s If You Want to Build a House (New York, 1946), published by the Museum of Modern Art, and the complete guide for Tomorrow’s House (New York, 1945) by George Nelson and Henry Wright were among numerous publications that were available at a modest cost. And broad coverage of the topic in professional and popular periodicals was also nearly continuous.

In terms of the popular press, home shelter magazines continued their devoted sponsorship of affordable residential design during the 1940s and subsequent decades. Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful, and Better Homes & Gardens were among the main publications that solicited work from leading architects and builders across the country. Ranch houses designed by Cliff May and others were among scores of designs that were prominently featured in print and usually built for public viewing as model houses, fully furnished and landscaped. Ideally, such examples conveyed the benefits of a collaborative effort, in which architects, builders, landscape architects, and interior designers pooled their talents to achieve quality products for sale.

Activity in the field of low-cost house design intensified even further during the early 1950s. Amid this activity, Cliff May collaborated with the Los Angeles architect Chris Choate in designing a low-cost ranch house that was marketed by the organization Cliff May Homes, initially in California and then nationwide by the mid- 1950s. The “Magic Money House” (1952-1953), was based on a five foot, four inch modular plan, and used post-and-beam elements with precut wooden wall panels for the structural components.16

The standard 831 square foot, two bedroom design was priced at approximately $8,000; larger plans were  adapted from this basic scheme. All of the designs were available for construction on individual lots or in multiples at tract developments. The design, materials, and method of construction of the Magic Money House were adroitly handled to create an up-to-date modern ranch house; yet the simplicity of its rectangular form and low-pitched gable roof still conveyed a traditional image. The Magic Money House joined May’s commissioned work in having a substantial impact on the postwar popularity of the ranch house. After the war as before the war, May’s work appealed to a wide audience that varied both economically and geographically.

Numerous other architects, builders, and prefabrication companies took advantage of the nationwide demand for ranch houses after the Second World War.17 Scholz Homes, Incorporated (Donald Scholz, builder) in Toledo, Ohio, and the National Homes Corporation, a successful prefabrication firm in Lafayette, Indiana, were among many that were actively designing and building ranch houses in the Midwest and other areas of the country.18 Most examples were essentially composed and sited as one might find along a typical postwar suburban street in California. On the East Coast, the prominent firm of Levitt and Sons even switched from its popular Cape Cod models to ranch houses for the Goldenridge tract (1951) in Levittown, Pennsylvania.19

Generally, these and other ranch houses revealed how various interpretations over the years had broadened its image in terms of design. This breadth of imagery also integrated details from regional as well as medieval variations of the Colonial Revival, the Prairie School and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Asia and the Pacific Islands, and elements from other architectural periods and traditions. Yet, the essential features of a ranch house, especially its low rectangular form and sense of informality, remained dominant. The popularity of the ranch house extended beyond residential architecture as well, long before the postwar period. Since the ranch house was typically low in scale and had a linear plan, it was easily adapted for almost every building type. Schools, public buildings, club buildings, small office buildings, and health care facilities were among the many nonresidential types that were designed to resemble single-family ranch houses. Designs for motels, restaurants, supermarkets, shopping centers, and other automobile related buildings achieved similar results as well. And by the 1960s, many of the major gasoline companies embraced the compatible suburban image of a ranch house for their neighborhood service stations. A Union Oil Company service station (circa 1965) in Thousand Oaks expresses how it and other service stations in California tried to convey an appropriate fit with their setting.

Conclusion
Following the initial popularity of the ranch house during the first half of the twentieth century, its prevalence after World War II secured its status as a major element of American culture. It seems somewhat puzzling, however, that the current retrospective interest in design, music, and fashion of the 1950s and 1960s has approached the ranch house primarily with apprehension, if at all. Perhaps for now it’s just too ordinary and common. Recently though, a hint of its significance was suggested when a brief history of the ranch house appeared in the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of the Old House Journal.20 And just last year, Sunset Magazine once again acknowledged its long association with the ranch house. The magazine’s annual Idea House for 1999 (Frank Stolz of South Coast Architects; and The O’Brien Group, developer/builder) was promoted as the “ranch house of the new millennium.”21 Built near San Jose, south of the magazine’s offices in Menlo Park, the design illustrates that the concept of a ranch house still continues to be explored and broadly interpreted.

This article was originally published in Preserving the Recent Past 2, edited by Deborah Slaton and William G. Foulks, Washington, DC: Historic Preservation Education Foundation, National Park Service, and Association for Preservation Technology International, 2000.

Notes
1 For a selection of the vast literature on postwar housing, see: Barry Checkoway, “Large Builders, Federal Housing Programs, and Postwar Suburbanization,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
4, no. I (March 1980): 21-45; Joseph B. Mason, History of Housing in the U.S. 1930-1980 (Houston: Gulf Publishing Co., 1982); Ned Eichler, The Merchant Builders (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1982); and Scott

Donaldson, The Suburban Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).

2 Russell Lynes, The Domesticated Americans (New York: Harper and Row, 1957), 266-67. See also: T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Homes of the Brave (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1954), 77-81.
3 James Marston Fitch, “The New American Architecture Started 70 Years Ago,” House Beautiful 92, no.
5 (May 1950): 258.
4 See, for example: Barbara L. Allen, “The Ranch-Style House in America: A Cultural and Environmental Discourse,” Journal of Architectural Education 49, no. 3 (February 1996): 156-165.
5 See also the later edition: Sunset Magazine, ed., Western Ranch Houses by Cliff May (San Francisco: Lane Publishing Co., 1958). It was reprinted in 1997 and the earlier edition (1946) was reprinted in 1999,
both by another publisher.
6 David Bricker, “Cliff May,” in Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts & Crafts Architects of California, ed. Robert Winter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 283-90; and Daniel
Gregory, “William W. Wurster,” 245-254.
7 Daniel P. Gregory, “Visions and Subdivisions: Sunset Magazine and the California Ranch House,” Architecture California 13, no. I (February 1991): 32-35.
8 “Residence of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Power, Camarillo, California,” Architectural Digest 2 1, no. 2 (Fall 1964): 20 23.
9 Alan R. Michelson, “Bemardi, Emmons–and Wurster: Focus on the Younger Partners,” in An Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster, ed. Marc Treib (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1995), 222 223.
10 David Gebhard, “Architectural Imagery, The Mission and California,” Harvard Architectural Review I (Spring 1980): 13940; Karen J. Weitze, California’s Mission Revival (Los Angeles: Hennessey and Ingalls, 1984), 26-28; and Richard Longstreth, On the Edge of the World: Four Architects in San Francisco at the Turn of the Century (New York: Architectural History Foundation, and Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983), 279-286.
11 Randall L. Makinson, Greene and Greene, Architecture as a Fine Art (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, Inc., 1977): 70-72, 8889; “Wooden Dwellings in California on the Lines of the Old Spanish Adobe,”
Craftsman 13, no. 5 (February 1908): 568-71; and Seymour E. Locke, “Bungalows, What They Really Are. The Frequent Misapplication of the Name,” House and Garden 12, no. 2 (August 1907): 48-50.
12 See, for example: Garden City Company of California, Ideal Homes in Garden Communities, 2nd ed.(New York: Robert M. McBride and Co., 1916), 11, 14, 19, 26, 37-38, 43.
13 “Subsistence Homesteads Are Planned for Economy and Comfort,” Southwest Builder and Contractor 84, no. 19 (19 November 1934): 26-28; and “Rurban Homes Project Near El Monte Now Nearing Completion,” Southwest Builder and Contractor 86, no. 6 (9 August 1935): 12-13.
14 A.E. Hanson, Rolling Hills: The Early Years, February 1930 through December 7,1941 (Rolling Hills: City of Rolling Hills, 1978); “Riviera Ranch Tract Being Opened Today,” Los Angeles Times, 20 October 1940, pt. V, p.3; and Cynthia Castle, “The Times Home Hunter,” Los Angeles Times, 17 November 1940, pt. V.
11 “Bohannon Building Team,” Architectural Forum 82, no. 6 (June 1945): 133-136, 138, 142, 146; “Big Dave Bohannon, Operative Builder by the California Method, Fortune 33, no. 4 (April 1946): 144-47, 190-200. See also: Donald Albrecht, ed., World War II and the American Dream: How Wartime Building Changed a Nation (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995).
16 David Bricker, “Built For Sale: Cliff May and the Low Cost California Ranch House,” (MA thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1983), 8 1-100. The design was renamed the “Magazine Cover House” in 1954.
17 See, for example: A. Quincy Jones, Jr. and Frederick E. Emmons, Builders’ Homes for Better Living (New York: Reinhold Publishing Co., 1957); Royal Barry Wills, Living on the Level: One-Story Houses (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1955); and John Hancock Callender, Before You Buy a House (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1953).
18 “Look at What’s Selling in Ohio!,” House and Home 3, no. I (January 1953): 144-15 1; “How Merchandising on Local and National Level Builds Volume,” American Builder 75, no. 21 (February 1953): 137-138. See also: John A. Jakle, Robert W. Bastian, and Douglas K. Meyer, Common Houses in America’s Small Towns: The Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi Valley (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1989), 182-195.
19 “$9,990 Levitt Houses Boast 70’ Lots,” Architectural Forum 95, no. 4 (Oct. 1951): 217-219.
20 Patricia Poore, “The Ranch House,” Old House Journal 26, no. 5 (September/October 1998): 75-80. See also: Esther McCoy and Evelyn Hitchcock, “The Ranch House,” in Home Sweet Home: American Domestic Vernacular Architecture, eds. Charles W. Moore, Kathryn Smith, and Peter Becker (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1983), 84-89; and Alan Hess, Rancho Deluxe: Rustic Dreams and Real Western Living (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000).
21 Daniel Gregory and Ann Bertelsen, “Sunset Magazine’s 1999 Idea House,” Sunset 203, no. 3 (September 1999): 110-129.

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How interesting — editors of the Small Homes Guide in 1948 declared that this was the first house they had ever seen “especially designed for television.” Architect Rudolph A. Matern created the home with a special television alcove where folks could watch “prize fights and ball games” without filling the center of the living room with furniture.

Television was introduced as early as 1928, but it took a while to get the technology right. It was gearing up, just as World War II started. After a delay, TV took off bigtime so that by 1948, you can see why “where to put the TV” started becoming an issue. Hmmm. I think it’s a pretty good guess that Matern’s T-V alcove grew to be – the Family Room!

Some TV history
According to Wikipedia: The FCC issued the first commercial television licenses to NBC and CBS owned stations in New York on July 1, 1941, followed by Philco’s station in Philadelphia, then licensed as WPTZ and eventually licensed again as the present-day KYW-TV. After the U.S. entry into World War II, the FCC reduced the required minimum air time for commercial television stations from 15 hours per week to 4 hours. Most TV stations suspended broadcasting. On the few that remained, programs included entertainment such as boxing and plays, events at Madison Square Garden, and illustrated war news as well as training for air raid wardens and first aid providers. In 1942, there were 5,000 sets in operation, but production of new TVs, radios, and other broadcasting equipment for civilian purposes was suspended from April 1942 to August 1945.

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A new reader – another Pam – wrote recently to tell me about her Royal Barry Wills home north of Boston and to ask me some kitchen questions. Meanwhile, she has turned me on to this amazing designer – whose Cape Cods and colonials were just as important and influential in postwar design history as any modernists. For today’s Sunday reading, here’s a essay by Richard Guy Wilson, which I’ve continued via a link to the Royal Barry Wills design firm, which still operates today:

The most popular architect among the American middle class after World War II employed three names —and it was not Frank Lloyd Wright but Royal Barry Wills. Life magazine in 1946 anointed Wills as creating “the kind of house most Americans want,” because his books sold more than 520,000 copies, and he had designed some 1,100 houses. Earlier, in 1938, Wills had dueled with Wright in a Life magazine contest over houses for the middle class. Wright entered one of his Usonian designs and Wills showed a Cape Cod house. Although the family initially favored Wright, they selected Wills in the end and built his Cape Cod design.12

Houses designed or influenced by Royal Barry Wills were ubiquitous, as Americans devoured his books, discovered his designs in homemaker and housebuilding magazines and newspapers, and either bought his plans or contacted him for a custom design. By the time of his death, in 1962, Wills and his firm were responsible for more than 2,500 houses. Wills was so popular that a writer for the Saturday Evening Post in 1958 observed: “Many a would-be home owner, surveying the infinite variations of Mr. Wills’s Cape Codders in plan books and magazines has concluded that he is the man who somehow-invented-the-design.

Continue reading

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Recommended by Courtney, this 2004 L.A. Times article also includes a great timeline of the Asian-Tiki trend – which the Times calls “Tropi-California”:

A century under the palms

Tropi-California décor has evolved from exotic to kitsch to the essence of contemporary casual. The highlights of 100 years of a homegrown style:

1904-19: East Coast emigres find their Victorian parlor wicker (once paired with potted palms in the solarium) to be lightweight and durable enough to use in and out of doors, as the climate of California encouraged.

1920-29: Sica, a thin round vine also known as stick rattan, is introduced into such furniture as casual angular armchairs with built-in magazine slots by companies such as Heywood-Wakefield, below. In Europe, Mies van der Rohe designs modernist tubular metal chairs with wicker seats.

1930-39: Inspired by Filipino craftsmen who bend thick rattan rods into organic shapes, American designers twist the pliable but weather resistant material into fanciful Deco and Streamline shapes. As a decorative accent, rattan, cane and sea grass are often mixed with Philippine mahogany. Ernest Beaumont-Gantt opens Don the Beachcomber, the big kahuna of Tiki restaurants.

1940-48: Rattan is the most prevalent furniture among American servicemen stationed in the Pacific. As imports grow, manufacturers such as Tropical Sun Rattan in Pasadena, above, and Ritts Co. in Los Angeles spring up. Furniture designer Paul Frankl’s pretzel-shaped armchair becomes an icon of the era. Rattan with loud floral upholstery becomes popular for porches and rec rooms across the country.

1949-52: Architect Paul Williams builds a new wing at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The Martinique banana-leaf print wallpaper selected by decorator Don Loper defines the postwar tropical look in Los Angeles. The hotel’s lunch counter, right, looks the same today. In 1952, Danny Ho Fong opens Tropi-Cal in Los Angeles.

1953-58: In the years before Hawaii became the 49th state, the look of Hawaii and Polynesia become popularized in “From Here to Eternity” (1953) and “South Pacific” (1958). Trader Vic’s becomes a national chain, opening an outpost in the Beverly Hilton that still stands. As U.S. manufacturers cut corners, rattan starts to look ratty and is soon surpassed in popularity by plywood and molded fiberglass modern furniture.

1959-65: “Gidget” and its sequel “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” are released and Elvis goes to the islands in “Blue Hawaii,” launching the surf craze in America and the beach movie genre around the world.

1966-70: Woven furniture is reinvented with sleek designs from Scandinavia and Japan. During this era, the often-imitated 1959 hanging egg chair, left, by Nanna and Jorgen Ditzel becomes a symbol of the swinging ’60s.

1971-79: Interest in Art Deco and Victoriana keeps classic rattan and wicker out of dumpsters, but the tropical look falls into dormancy.

1980-89: The sun-soaked style catches a new wave of popularity with set-in-Florida TV shows such as “Miami Vice” and “The Golden Girls.” Prewar rattan classics like fan-arm chairs, below, used on the set of the latter become highly collectible.

1990-95: The Sunset Marquis Hotel and Villas in West Hollywood, above, reinterprets Tropi-California in rooms decorated with floral prints on European furniture. The lounge music revival leads to a new appreciation of midcentury tiki kitsch. Former decorator Joe O’Brien opens the surf-centric Cabana Joe’s in Venice.

1996-99: As Buddhism becomes hip, Asian influences join Moroccan accents in Tropi-California design. Warisan, a Balinese antique emporium and design firm, opens a retail shop on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. Schiffer publishes “Rattan: Tropical Comfort Throughout the House.”

2000-04: Orange County artist Shag mixes Polynesian imagery with midcentury furniture for gallery paintings and commercial illustrations. The tiki torch ceremony becomes must-see TV on “Survivor.” The 50-year-old rattan firm McGuire releases a collection by designer Barbara Barry. Tommy Bahama and Cabana Joe’s become household names. National Geographic licenses its name for tropical furniture by Palecek like the Serengeti chair, above.

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The mid-century trend to pink seems to have come directly and irrefutably from Mamie Eisenhower, first lady from 1953 to 1961. Pink was Mamie’s favorite color. She wore a pink gown with 2,000 pink rhinestones to Ike’s inauguration. Ike sent her pink flowers every morning. Her bathroom in Gettysburg was pink down to the cotton balls. She re-decorated the private quarters in the White House in pink. So much so that reporters called it the “Pink Palace.” The color also seems to have been known as “First Lady Pink.” As a result of all this pink-think, there was probably no question that American women (and marketers) would pick up on it. It also was a color trend right in line with the exuberance of the time — and even supportive of the return of women to the home after WWII and their complete remaking of the American domestic landscape.

In fact, my own informal research from scouring marketing materials from the period indicates that pink kitchens and baths arrived solidly in ‘53, reached a total frenzy in 1957, then pretty rapidly started to fade after that, as other trends took hold. A typical adoption curve for a trend like this.

I have an aquamarine kitchen – the decorating gods sided with my husband on this decision. But I really truly wanted pink. I have to admit, a total fixation.

So much so, that: Tomorrow I am starting a very special series: More than 60 pink kitchens, rolled out over the week. A festival of pink pink pink to start the month. So be sure to check back in, to check it out.

Meanwhile: Here’s a nice story about Mamie…Photo of her at right is from the Library of Congress collection:

All About Mamie

By Jan Biles
The Capital-Journal (Topeka, Kansas)
Published Sunday, November 18, 2007

Not much is known about Mamie Doud Eisenhower.

She was a dutiful wife and mother who stood in the background as her husband, Dwight, excelled in his military career during World War II and then led the country from the Oval Office as the 34th president from 1953 to 1961.  Read the rest here from the Topeka, KS, Capitol-Journal online.

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