Bungalow Heaven’s Architecture
A Heritage of Historic Styles
Bungalow Heaven’s houses almost all date from between 1888 and 1956. Architectural fashions came and went throughout this long span, leaving us with a treasure trove of many styles. The styles can be roughly grouped into these four categories (with dates showing primary years):
• Victorian (1885-1906)
• Arts and Crafts (1903-1923)
• Period Revival (1915-1939)
• Minimal Traditional and Ranchette (1930-1956)
There are also a few houses built in (or remodeled into) recent styles of the 1960s and later. The majority of our historic houses are well preserved, giving the neighborhood the flavor of times past.
Bungalows give the district its name, but what is a bungalow? The word was used in many related ways over the years, but the most consistent meaning has been a small house of the early Twentieth Century with most rooms on one level, with perhaps a few rooms above. Sometimes “bungalow style” has been used as another term for the Craftsman style developed in California, but by the broader definition, a bungalow is a form or type of house that can have various styles.
The Victorian Styles: Complexity and Verticality
The Victorian styles of the United States took inspiration from the medieval and Renaissance buildings of many Old World regions, often combining features in non-traditional ways. They were usually vertical in proportions – even the windows – and typically had exuberant and complex details and decor.
Bungalow Heaven’s few examples are mostly rather subdued versions, being small cottages that either were early farm houses or were moved to the neighborhood in the 1920s. The oldest intact house in Bungalow Heaven is the 1888 Keil house on Mentor Avenue near Orange Grove Boulevard. The Victorian showplace of the immediate area is Hillmont (1887) at the corner of Mountain Street and Hill Avenue, just outside of the landmark district.
The Arts and Crafts Styles: A Return to Simplicity
The Arts and Crafts (or “Craftsman”) Movement rejected the ornateness and verticality of Victorian design, preferring instead simpler elements, natural materials, and horizontal proportions. The movement emphasized simplicity, honesty, and integrity, both as a design philosophy and as a way of life. It fostered an appreciation of nature as a source of spiritual and physical reinvigoration. The Arts and Crafts Movement was the esthetic counterpart of the Progressive Movement (circa 1896-1920) which drove social and political reform, women’s suffrage, and the temperance movement.
Pasadena has a special place in the history of the American Arts and Crafts Movement as the home base of architects Greene & Greene, who were among the most celebrated masters working within the movement. They established a local version of the Craftsman style that was popularly thought of as a combination of the Swiss chalet with elements of Japanese and East Asian design.
The Greenes’ masterworks of 1906-1908 exerted a pervasive influence on the city, the region, and eventually the whole country. Many houses in Bungalow Heaven show the influence of this local style, adapted by builders to homes of modest size. Other Arts and Crafts homes here reflect an earlier and more rustic version of the esthetic.
The great achievement of the Craftsman builders was that they incorporated distinctive and innovative touches into homes the average citizen could afford – a comfortable bungalow could be built for around $2,000 to $2,500. The Craftsman bungalow was popular until World War I, surviving in simpler and less rustic form into the 1920s. A little over half of Bungalow Heaven’s houses are in the Craftsman style, making it the predominant image here.
The Period Revival Styles: The Romance of the Old World
The term Period Revival Styles encompasses the American Colonial, Old English or Tudor, Modern English, Spanish Colonial, Italian, Mediterranean, Pueblo, and various mixes of these styles. This group of styles dominated the 1920s in the United States, providing stage-set architecture harkening back to real or imagined roots in the Old World or the Pre-Columbian Americas.
The Period Revival styles were perfected regionally in the form of large mansions by such influential architects as Reginald D. Johnson, Marston & Van Pelt, Myron Hunt, and Wallace Neff. Pasadena’s new civic center came into being in the 1920s in the Spanish-Italian-Mediterranean modes, and many commercial buildings also were in the revival styles.
In Bungalow Heaven, Period Revival styles were making inroads into the popularity of the Craftsman style by 1915. Revivals became dominant here for new homes by 1919 and remained popular through the 1920s, continuing to be built to some extent into the 1930s. In the realm of the smaller house, these modes took the form of new attire for the bungalow type, with floor plans that were similar to Craftsman bungalows but usually omitted the large front porch and had fewer built-in features. The Period Revivals now account for around 30% of existing homes in Bungalow Heaven, making them the second-most numerous stylistic group.
Minimal Traditional and Ranchette Homes: Economical But Homey
By the early 1930s, a new type of house was taking hold regionally to meet the new conditions imposed by the Great Depression. This new type was a direct descendant of the earlier bungalow types and fulfilled similar needs, but with greater economic efficiency. It was stripped down to essentials for economy and value, with few identifiable historical details. This new style is referred to today as Minimal Traditional, among various names. It is compact with simple details and minimal roof overhangs.
The Ranch house emerged at almost the same time as the Minimal Traditional. Ranch houses were more rambling and had wider roof overhangs and more varied windows and details. The Ranch style was sometimes simplified and blended with the Minimal Traditional, resulting in a type called Ranchette or Minimal Ranch. These are similar to Minimal Traditional but have somewhat wider roof overhangs and other nods to Ranch-style features.
Minimal Traditional and Ranchette homes were very well matched to the need for affordable yet “homey” houses. Many large tract home developments after World War II featured these closely-related types, a typical example being the new town of Lakewood near Long Beach.
Minimal Traditional and Ranchette houses are found scattered throughout Bungalow Heaven. They continued to be built until the neighborhood was essentially “built out” around 1956, and also were often erected as rear units. Today they constitute around 7% of the neighborhood’s primary houses, but they make up about 23% of the homes on the long blocks of Chester and Holliston avenues north of Mountain Street. Because of a quirk in the original definition of the Landmark District, currently only about 40% of these houses are protected (those built before 1940).
A Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts
Bungalow Heaven’s historic homes of all styles contribute to the unique fabric of the neighborhood. One characteristic shared by all of them is that each house is unique, with very few that match another house exactly. This came about because the area was developed by small contractor-developers and owner-builders, rather than by big development corporations. This pattern held true during the whole 70-year-plus span of development.
So the streets are engaging at every turn – the various styles repeat as we take in the views, yet each house provides a fresh interpretation. These small gems of houses are set in organic, naturally-occurring patterns across a large district. When taken as a whole, they amount to a monumental treasure house of interesting and delightful designs, a satisfying place to live or visit.