What is a Bungalow?

By Kerry Phillips, Founding Member, SBHA

Ask ten people to describe a bungalow and you'll likely get ten different answers. For some, it's a type of house; for others, it's a decorative style. And for all of us, to some extent, a bungalow is an emotional response, a state of mind that's a little harder to define. The historical use of architectural terminology is confusing, tangled up with promotion and advertising as much as with accurate description. Just as Sanford White's design of "The Breakers" for the Vanderbilts in Newport, Rhode Island, is called a "cottage," so we find the Greene and Greene Brothers' largest works referred to as "ultimate bungalows." Likewise, Gustaf Stickley referred to his home and furniture designs interchangeably as "Craftsman" or "Mission." And then there's the confusion over the term "bungalow." I don't claim to solve the problem here, but I hope to provide enough information to help us make informed distinctions.

Let me begin with a brief excerpt from the introduction to Radford's Artistic Bungalows, from 1980: "The bungalow age is here. It is the renewal in artistic type of the primitive 'love in a cottage' sentiment that lives in some degree in every human heart. Architecturally, it is the result of the effort to bring about harmony between the house and its surroundings, to get as close as possible to nature." Thus, the bungalow is as much a spiritual hearth as it is physical structure. I'd like to approach this attempt at definition by dividing the discussion into three interrelated parts. First, the bungalow is a specific housing type. Secondly, each bungalow has a decorative or aesthetic style distinct from it's being a type of housing. And finally, the Arts and Crafts Movement provides the overarching social, aesthetic, and philosophical principles through which the bungalow ideal was developed.

The Bungalow and the Arts and Crafts Movement

The bungalow as we know it evolved from the aesthetic ideas of John Ruskin and William Morris in the late 19th century, and as it was promoted early in this century especially by Gustaf Stickley in his Craftsman magazine, and Elbert Hubbard through the Roycrofters. All promoted a return to a simpler decorative arts and simpler architectural forms and styles. All emphasized handcrafts and a closer connection to nature. They all promoted ideals through what now is referred to as the Arts and Crafts Movement, which was most influential in California from 1900-1920. Arts & Crafts is a term analogous to using Victorian or Colonial to describe periods where styles or design philosophies were most influential -- it's both a period time and a design consciousness.

The Bungalow as a House Type

The bungalow is a type of house in the same way that a four-square, I-house, shotgun, or cottage represents structural arrangements. Let's start by trying a few definitions on for size. The straightforward dictionary definition is a one- or one-and-a-half- story dwelling. More specifically, though, a bungalow should have at least one porch, preferably integral to the design of the house, and have a more relzxed open living arrangement (in contrast to the more formal Victorian type), one especially highlighting the connection between inside and outside spaces, either through porches, terraces, pergolas, french doors, extra glazing, and the like.

More practically, James Massey and Shirley Maxwell (Old House Journal, March 1996, p. 35) describe bungalows as typically having "projecting roof lines (that may be gabled or hipped and usually have exposed rafter ends and dormers), at least one deep front porch that may be under the main roof of the house, and an emphasis on the artistic use of common (preferably local) materials." Let me quote further from Radford in 1908: "the bungalow cannot be built too close to the ground, and indeed, the purpose always should be to make the bungalow a harmonious part of the grounds surrounding it. Wide cemented porches are frequently laid flat on the surface, so that the indoors and outdoors might be said to join hands...the artistic sense of the builder must be expressed in accord with the immediate location."

Thus, it's easier to see how the bungalow type fundamentally differs from the Victorian type that precedes it. Rooms are less formal and have multiple purposes: living rooms typically are open or partially open to dining rooms; formal parlors are eliminated; entries typically are small vestibules or open directly into the living room; public rooms typically have built-in bookcases, china cabinets, and sometimes window seats or fireplace inglenooks. Windows are shorter and broader than Victorian windows and provide more glass area. Kitchens are compace and located adjacent to dining rooms which rarely have butler's pantries. Since bungalows are built with modern kitchens, appliances, and plumbing and electrical systems, most homeowners did not need servants or servants' quarters.

Now that's not to say that there aren't larger bungalows. But even larger versions tended to preserve the bungalow's strong horizontal relationship to the land and maintain a more informal arrangement of living spaces.

The Bungalow and Style

Just as there are styles of Victorian houses (Queen Anne, Second Empire, Italianate), there are styles of bungalows (Craftsman, Prairie, California Bungalow). In each case, there are adaptations of surface ornament or detail to a specific housing type. And there are Arts and Crafts house types that aren't typically bungalows but may have surface details that are similar to bungalow styles (for example, the Bay Area Brown Shingle, or the work of Bernard Maybeck or the Greene and Greene brothers). And, of course, there are all manner of regional variations. So if we were to look at a particular house, we might identify the house type as a bungalow and its style as Craftsman. By the same token, a bungalow could have Colonial Revival detailing, or a four-square house type could have Craftsman detail (fewer than half of Stickley's Craftsman designs were bungalows). And all of them would still be Arts and Crafts Movement houses.

Craftsman bungalows, a style heavily promoted and popularized by Gustaf Stickley, were originally modestly-scaled and priced, were usually wood-frame houses, sheathed with wood siding or shingles, complemented by generous front porches (often made of inexpensive, artistic clinker brick), and simple but massive wooden porch posts (as opposed to the more delicate and heavily milled ornamentation of Victorian architecture), wood shingled and gabled roofs (usually low-pitched), and surface lines which empahsize the house's basic horizontal relationship to the ground.

Views from California Arts and Crafts Professionals

(Hats off to Steven and Susan Ballew who solicited the bungalow definitions from the scholars and artisans listed below.)

Robert Winter, author of The California Bungalow and American Bungalow Style, among other works: "Most dictionaries are explicit: a bungalow is a one or one-and-a-half story dwelling. Good enough, except that since the period when most bungalows were produced, literally every type of house has at one time or another been called a bungalow."

But beyond this utilitarian definition, Winter, in The California Bungalow, notes that "the bungalow suggested California -- its style of life, its mild climate, its casual living with nature...the bungalow, with all of its special features of style, convenience, simplicity, sound building, and excellent plumbing, provided respectability in an age which popularized that concept."

Bruce Bradbury, of Bradury and Bradbury Art Wallpapers: "I prefer to think that there are 32 flavors of bungalow, starting with the early Craftsman style cottages of the turn-of-the-century and seamlessly blending into the Romantic Revival houses of the 1920's. As I generally think about houses in terms of their interiors, it makes no sense to exclude the American Foursquare or the urban Edwardian townhouses, as the interiors share many of the same characteristics as the bungalow. So I just tend to think of the whole bundle as 'early 20th century domestic architecture; wonderfully varied and inventive, and very, very American."

Dianne Ayers of Arts and Crafts Period Textiles: "(I) focus ... on the Arts and Crafts style with their cheerful, comfortable, friendly atmosphere, but I try to remember to look beyond my Arts and Crafts blinders to see bungalows of other styles -- Colonial Revival, Romantic Revival, etc., and appreciate them for their inherent charm and beauty."

Ted Wells, project manager for the John T. Greene House and Nicholas-Kelly Garden restoration: "A bungalow nourishes the needs of our souls. It is a symbol of a time when people made an honest living, remained true to their values, lived casually without pretension, optimistically faced new challenges, and earned their place in the larger context of family and community. As long as people understand that the built environment can encourage such feelings, and cherish such things for their soul, the bungalow's popularity will continue to grow."

Ted Bosley, director of the Gamble House: "...a bungalow is a compact bit of shelter in the garden, and bungalow life is forever linked to the out-of-doors. Sleeping porches, terraces, sympathetic pergolas, all of these are compatible accoutrements of the bungalow...A bungalow is not grand, but inspires grand thoughts. It is simple, but can shelter complex lives, comfortably...a bungalow is never fussy. Long live the bungalow!"

Now for a difficult question: Is a bungalow defined merely by its housing type or can it be defined more for its design ethos -- its decorative style and use of materials? Here's where you get to decide:

The Gamble House in Pasadena, for example, is considered a bungalow by many (including the Greenes). Its design is consistent with the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement; its form is spreading, more horizontal and less formal than that of its Victorian counterparts. And it has broad open sleeping porches and artistic verandas t connect the house visually and spiritually to its landscape. It's craftsmanship, integration of natural materials, and consistency of design is remarkable. But at 8,000 square feet, however, and three floors of living space plus basement, it's hardly a cozy and compace middle-class shelter. Its room arrangements and functions are fairly formal, and are designed to be serviced by a large live-in staff. Have fun.

So, developing a specific definition of a bungalow is probably, even inevitably, an impossible task, but we all know one when we see one -- whether its a constructed bungalow or a spiritual one. Today, the bungalow's appeal is not distinctly different from what attracted its original owners, except that, perhaps ironically, it signals a return to America's older, more urban, and more social neighborhoods, realatively free from the stresses of commuting that plague so many of today's suburban commuters.

The bungalow owner of the early 20th century didn't buy a "lifestyle," a term we too often hear today; instead, families entered into a purposeful and philosophic way of living, one that promoted closer relationships in family activities, closer connections to nature through an aesthetic use of materials and forms that helped to blur inside/outside distinctions, and a way of living that reflected, in its simplicity of design and articulation, a dedication to a straightforward American ethic of hard work and a comfortable home in which to enjoy the fruits of our labors. Why not call this, to borrow a term from the Old House Journal, the pursuit of "Bungalove."