Where did I come from? -RR

The Raised Ranch and its brethren were born out of a dire need for affordable, easily built housing in the post-World War II era. With millions of service people returning to the United States, there was an almost instant need for new dwellings all over the country. Fortunately, the Federal Housing Administration (“FHA”) had been created in 1934 to promote lending by insuring certain home loans, making them virtually risk-free for lenders. Factories in the United States that had been dedicated to the war effort now had to be converted to other uses, including the manufacture of building supplies. In order to meet the increased demand, style would be sacrificed for function and cost. Small homes with little variation in design could be planned and constructed rapidly. The days of the custom-built home (Colonial Revival, Victorian, Tudor) of the early 1900’s were over, temporarily.

Homeownership became more feasible for many Americans after World War II due to favorable tax laws, the FHA, and a booming post-war economy. Jobs were aplenty, and banks, having mostly recovered from the trenches of the Great Depression, made financing available. According to the United States Census Bureau Census of Housing, overall homeownership rates increased from 43.6% in 1940 to 61.9% in 1960, an enormous positive change.

Ranch, Cape Cod, Split-Level, and variations on the Raised Ranch-theme homes spread like wildfire. They were constructed without trouble, often on cement slab, saving time and money by not digging deep basements. They were mostly well-located in suburban areas with convenience to city centers and/or newly developed shopping areas. Parks, recreation, good schools, and transportation arteries and hubs made life in the suburbs “easy livin’”.

The design of the Split-Level and Raised Ranch style homes may have been influenced by some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ideas, in which public areas of the home would flow into each other. This is more true for Split-Levels, which typically have a ½ flight of stairs leading from the kitchen to the family room below. However, I can vouch for the fact that the flow in Raised Ranch homes ends on the main level and does not include the family room in any way. In fact, this is my greatest complaint about our house, other than the exterior aesthetics. The family room is completely disconnected from the rest of the house, making entertaining large groups (i.e. more than 10 people) difficult and forcing a decision every evening as to where to settle in for the night. We are too cheap to pay for two DVR’s, so we end up staying upstairs in the living room most evenings, even though we have an enormous, lovely room beckoning downstairs. Of course, if we eliminated the living room television, that problem could be solved, but then our living room would become more of a showpiece and less of a family gathering place. But I digress. More on that later.

Modern architecture has sought to bring the outside in, which is why we often see large and multiple glass windows in modern homes, to a much greater extent than in more traditional homes. This is another flaw in the “tract housing” of the Post-World War II era. In order to cut costs, builders would use the same plan over and over again, making slight modifications for how lot topography might affect placement of steps, foundation, etc. We recently uncovered the original blueprints for our home and realized that the same plan was used to build our next door neighbor’s house! In order to save time during construction, no attention was paid to how the homeowner might take advantage of views from their residence. The same windows would be installed in the same places in each home, even if the backyard contained beautiful woods, a babbling brook, or a gorgeous Dogwood tree. Similarly, if the house were situated close to the street, or set back nicely, the same windows would be employed, sizes and all. It would be up to the homeowner to customize the window treatments to accommodate their particular needs. In fact, given the character-less nature of these homes, homeowners were really just buying a shell with a roof, walls, foundation and the typical fit-out of a home (bedrooms, baths, kitchen, living areas). Any sense of character was left completely to the buyer’s discretion to create.

Our backyard, while not large, abuts our neighbor’s lot which is almost three times the size and filled with woods and a gigantic rock formation, providing a magnificent natural buffer between us. Unfortunately, the only windows onto this wonderland exist in the dining room (regular double-hung double window), kitchen (small double-hung window) and master bathroom (even smaller double-hung window). There is no view from the master bedroom. We are quite frankly amazed that no one has addressed this in the home’s 40 year life. By the way, the view from the one existing window in the master bedroom is…my neighbor’s exterior wall. It is a blank, vinyl-sided wall with (thankfully, I suppose), no windows. I must admit, though, on Wednesday and Friday nights in the summer, we gather in the master bedroom to watch fireworks from the local amusement park, which can be seen exploding in the distance. We crane our necks a bit to see over the neighbor’s roof, but it is a bonus view we did not expect when we bought the house. Maybe the previous owners never looked out the windows? Windows and views will definitely need to be addressed in order to bring the unique aspects of our entire property into the overall feel of our home.