Product Description

The trend is unmistakable. The Ranch-style house-a phenomenal success in the '40s, '50s, and '60s-is making a comeback. Like the enthusiastic embrace of Modern-style houses in the past decade, the Ranch house today is being snatched up and restored all across suburban America, while longtime owners are rediscovering what seduced them in the first place. Now Alan Hess, one of the country's leading authorities on the 20th-century American home, offers the definitive look at the Ranch house as he guides readers on a tour of more than 30 iconic examples, all photographed especially for this book.

With L- or U-shaped floor plans and sliding glass doors that provide direct access to the patio from the living area, the Ranch house is ideal for an indoor/ outdoor lifestyle and great for families, qualities that made it so appealing in its early days. Now, as this book illustrates, with baby boomers reclaiming the design aesthetic of their youth and a younger generation welcoming the warm and casual spirit of the Ranch, it's no surprise that this most populist of house styles is popular once again. AUTHOR BIO: Alan Hess is architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News. His books include Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, Rancho Deluxe, The Architecture of John Lautner, and Palm Springs Weekend. He lives in Troy, Michigan. Noah Sheldon is an architectural photographer based in New York City whose work has been featured in numerous national periodicals, includingThe New York Times Magazine and New York. This is his first book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #474254 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 240 pages

About the Author
Alan Hess is architecture critic for the San Jose Mercury News. His books include Googie: Fifties Coffee Shop Architecture, Rancho Deluxe, The Architecture of John Lautner, and Palm Springs Weekend. He lives in Troy, Michigan. Noah Sheldon is an architectural photographer based in New York City whose work has been featured in numerous national periodicals, including House and Garden and New York. This is his first book.

Customer Reviews

The joys of one-level living
Another beautiful Alan Hess architectural history that deserves to become the standard work. The book is in two parts, in the first sixty-eight pages he writes a readable and interesting history of this very popular housing concept and being popular it was looked down on by the architectural elite and many critics. The second part (147 pages) is a pictorial study of twenty-six ranch houses photographed by Noah Sheldon.

It is Sheldon's photos that makes the book come alive for me. With one photographer taking all the color photos there is a consistency of composition and color values and these 230 photos really work, with exteriors and interiors showing structural detail and the use of space. He manages to make the work of Cliff May, William Wurster or Harwell Hamilton Harris really sparkle plus Hess has written comprehensive captions to all these images, another refreshing plus for a highly visual book.

The design and production can't be faulted though to really make it perfect I would have liked to see floor plans of the twenty-six houses. By the nature of the ranch house, on one floor and no need for second floor supporting walls, rooms could meander in any direction and the leading architects of the style certainly took advantage of this. The back pages have a bibliography and index. I think Hess has written an excellent survey of this past popular house style and it will appeal to anyone interested in domestic architectural design.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

Not quite comprehensive, but a good survey.
The first half of the book quite thoroughly describes the evolution of the traditional working ranch home into the contemporary suburban family compound. Especially interesting is the information about the beginnings of suburban subdivisions in general. While Hess limits his focus to a handful of California and Arizona communities, the stories of these communities were doubtless replicated in other cities all the way to the east coast.

The only negative, really, is that the photo spreads in the second half of the book seem to be focused more on custom homes. With the focus of the first section being more on mass-produced tract homes, I would like to have seen an equal focus on these communities in the second half as well. I would have also liked to see more contemporary examples, as there are only one or two contemporary models showcased, with many examples of the rustic style.

Overall, a very informative look at the evolution of ranch homes in the mid-century American west.

Depressing
Mr Hess may be an architecture critic in San Jose but his focus in this book is low-end, tract style Ranch houses and his photographer, with similar credentials, is less inspired than a novice realtor photographing homes for the first time. When you realize his coffee house book was a 1950's effort, you know he doesn't have a broad experience beyond San Jose. Don't expect floor plans or any clues as to square feet under roof. This is a waste of time and money.