Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #848627 in Books
• Published on: 2003-09-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Customer Reviews

Good parts and not so good parts.
First, the plusses. The print is good and clear and the pictures are nicely reproduced with good contrast and clarity. The floorplans are also easily legible, including those wee tiny numbers, denoting room dimensions.

The very best feature of this reproduction of a 1923 "Beautiful Bungalows" book (originally published by The Builder's Journal), is page 71. There, in delicious detail, is the explanation of why those two-story bungalows (oft-seen in California) are known as "Airplane Bungalows" (or as the article reads, Aeroplane Bungalows).

I've never seen this information in print before and I found the explanation completely enchanting. They even show a photo and a graphic, explaining this unique term. For those who don't know the reason, I'll give you a sneak peak.

According to this book (reprinted by Dover Publications), The second story of the aeroplane bungalow "occupies only a central space and the wide overhangs of the roof give a winged appearance."

So there you have it.

And bear in mind, the aeroplane of 1923 was a double-winged "bi-plane" and that's the look they're talking about. Quite interesting, eh? That little tidbit, reproduced in photos, graphics and word, made this $10 book well worth the price. And that's a good thing because the rest of the book was a little boring.

As you'll see from my reviews, I read a lot of books from this time period and a lot of books on historic architecture, but this one didn't grab me. It's really a compilation of various bungalows built in different parts of the country. These were architect-designed homes built on suburban (spacious) lots and each house is given two or three pages. So there aren't that many designs. And the designs that are shown are snoozers (with few exceptions). They're uninspired, run-of-the-mill, vanilla-flavored designs. Nothing too exciting here.

Unlike the text in kit home catalogs (my personal favorite) the text in this book is dry. For instance, "As this plan shows, this bungalow contains quite a large size living room. The house illustrated, although simple in design, is attractive by reason of the proprotioning of windows and dormers, together with their resepective placing" (p. 35).

Yawn. I'd much rather read, "You'll have the happiest housewife in America if you invest $55 a month in this quaint kit home..." (which was typical language found in the kit home catalogs).

For those who are obsessed with this topic and love, love, love to read anything and everything about 1920s houses, this is a nice little addition. But it's not a good historic reference and the homes are boring and lack zing and there's very little history and/or info in this book.

Rose Thornton
author, The Houses That Sears Built