Tallahassee REALTOR Defines Ranch Styles Homes to Buyers

I hear so many people, even people in the real estate field, incorrectly stating what is a ranch style home. I want to make some clarifications, as the ranch style home is an American icon, and covers the land, from coast to coast.

Here in Tallahassee, Florida, and all throughout northwest Florida, there are many, many ranch style homes in all sizes.

A ranch style home must be rectangular shape, but can be a rectangle in U-shape form, a rectangle in L-Shape form, with an attached  garage or attached carport on one side. Size is irrelevant to ranch homes, as I have seen ranch style homes as small as 1000 square feet to spacious horizontal structures over 3000 square feet.

Ranch styles homes are focused on the horizontal, not the vertical, like other architectural types of homes, such as colonials, traditional, cape cods, and contemporaries. Ranch style homes are lower lying to the earth, and can harmoniously fit in well with the local environment, such as our Tallahassee, Florida environment with its many evergreen trees: the pines. 

Every ranch home must have either a low-pitch, gable roof, or a flat roof. This is where people sometimes make the big blunder. Drive through most any established neighborhood in Tallahassee, Florida, and you will see true ranch style homes. A home may be a ranch in every way, but the roof is not a low-pitch gable roof. With a ranch style home, the roof and the rectangular shape are the two fundamental characteristics. You can almost be certain that if the home’s roof is low-pitch gable, on a rectanglar body, the home is probably a ranch style home, especially in Tallahassee, and surrounding area.

Ranch style homes are not fancy, sophisticated, elegant on the outside. Rather, they are simple structures, and may or may not have a front porch, covered or uncovered. Ranches do have a back porch, patio or deck, which fits in with the tradition of ranches, in which family, and neighbors got together and grilled in the backyard, and lived in the yard more. I grew up in ranch homes, and can attest to that fact. We always congregated in the back yard, played badmitten, grilled burgers, and hot dogs, and overly used our lounge chairs. The backyard served an important role of getting together.

Now, for the indoors. My buyers say they want an open floor plan, but how many people realize that it was the ranch style home from the early 50’s that popularized the open floor plan. Ranch homes opened up the home for countless numbers of young Americans looking for their first home. Today, almost every home, with almost every architectural style, has an open floor plan, and that is an important feature for most everybody it seems. That kitchen, looking out onto the living room, or family room, and dining area, so entertaining is more comfortable, and people can feel more together. Also, an open floor plan usually allows for more light coming in, and people today expect a lot of light in their homes. Truly the homes of today, are even more open than many of the early ranch style homes.

Another fact about the interior of ranch homes is that there is a hallway with the bedrooms and baths starting from the foyer, and the foyer is the channel to the two segments of the home. Opposite of the hallways or at a 90 degree angle to it is the open floor living, entertaining and kitchen area, and sometimes the master bedroom and master bath are on the opposite end of the home from the other bedrooms, or in other cases, could also be down the same hallway starting from the foyer. There is order in ranch style homes, and you usually know where you are going.

Sometimes these homes have built-ins. Today, the built in entertainment center, book shelves, so forth, also come from the early ranch style home days.

Ranch homes often have a fireplace, often brick, or stone, but not always. Traditional ranch style homes used natural materials representing the local environment. Fitting in with nature has always been a theme for ranch style homes.

We owe so much to the ranch style home. I am so grateful I had the opportunity to have lived most of my life in this kind of dwelling. I will forever love ranch, and especially the era that surrounds the emergence and popularity of ranch, as I came from the baby boomer period.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
1607 Village Square Boulevard, Suite B103
Blog: http://KennethFach.wordpress.com
Cell 850-339-5753

Each office is independently owned and operated.

Neighborhood Lifecycles

I wonder how many of us here in northwest Florida, specifically, Tallahassee, have lived in the same neighborhood for many years, or at least long enough to observe the process of growth that occurs in neighborhoods. When you plant a garden, it is a rewarding experience to observe the baby plants shoot up out of the soil, pass through the state of childhood, and become a full florishing plant, with fruits, vegetables, or and flowers. A neighborhood has its growth as well.

The developer moves in,  clears the land, flattens it, puts in infraestructure, such as  the roads, utilities, water system, drainage, and lighting. Next, the homes are built, perhaps spec homes, if builder is making a quantity of homes, with several models to choose from sometimes. Or, the neighborhood may consist of custom homes, in which the buyer can pick and choose what appearance and style is wanted for the home. Next, the home is lived in, the neighborhood grows, more people populate the area, trees grow, and over time, there is wear and tear of the structures, and the newness fades into history.

One neighborhood in particular here in Tallahassee, the Weems, was a forest a few years ago. I walked and explored that wooded area in east Tallahassee, which is the direction much real estate development is moving in. I was surprised when the Weems Subdivision was developed into a community of many single family homes. The trees were cut down, and new homes built. I then noticed over a few years that the landscaping in the community was developing, and trees planted or put in, were growing. The Weems is still a young neighborhood, but it is easy to notice that it is maturing, and is now established in the hearts and minds of folks here in Tallahassee.

It is fun to reflect on how neighborhoods grow, and change over time. I am always interested in hearing and reading about peoples’ experiences living for a period of time in a community, and the observations they have.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR, ePRO
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
1607 Village Square Blvd., Suite B103
Tallahassee, FL 32303
Cell 850-339-5753, Blog: http://KennethFach.wordpress.com 

Each office is independently owned and operated.

Northwest Florida adds a new State Park

Many people from all over the world, including myself, are attracted to Florida’s many state parks. There are now 161 state parks in Florida, many of them in northwest Florida. The parks offer natural Florida ecosystems, campgrounds, well maintained bathroom/shower facilities, hiking trails through the forests, fishing, swimming, boating, canoeing and much more. I grew up learning a lot about nature in these parks.

Florida’s newest state park, St Marks River State Park, is just 20 miles from Tallahassee, the state capital and home to Florida State University, where I worked on my graduate program.

St Marks State Park is so new no infrastructure has been created for the park. Currently, the historical and archeological resources are being studied and planning is being developed regarding where to put roads, restroom and picniking facilities, and whatever else will be available to the public. The park does have hiking trails that can be used now. There are old dirt roads through the park from the historical days. The forest products industry was an important industry through much of northwest Florida’s history. Today there are still vast forest lands all over Northwest Florida, but new real estate developments are anchoring in many places in the region.

Northwest Florida is a healthy, good place to live in. Nature is abundant here.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR ePRO
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
1607 Village Square Boulevard, Suite B 103
Tallahassee, FL 32309
Direct/Text 850-339-5753 KennethFach.WordPress.com

Each ffice is independently owned and operated.

Get Free Acorns With Your Home

The acorns are on the ground now all over, here in northwest Florida, a sign that autumn is here. I like walking in the parks, and in neighborhoods, stepping on many acorns and hearing the crunchy sounds this creates. However, there is more to acorns than just the announcement of a change in seasons.

Squirrels eat acorns. The native Americans ate acorns. This member of the nut family is nutricious, and abundant. There are tons of acorns everywhere, enough to feed a lot of people. So what do you do with acorns? They are on the ground waiting for harvesting hands, and they are free.

When I was an archeology student at the University of West Florida,I had an interesting assignment during a fall semester.I had to gather wild acorns and make bread or muffins out of them. Other students had to gather or hunt other foods in the native American way. We were to have a natural harvest feast with everyone bringing what they were to bring: roots, rabbit, deer, an edible bark type, seeds, vegetables and more. So, I wandered through the vast forests surrounding the University of West Florida, and collected buckets of acorns. Fall is a very comfortable time to be outdoors anyway, after the long, hot Florida summers. I took the acorns home, boiled them in hot water to get the toxins out of them (something you must do), and I let them sit in the water, I think overnight, but I do not remember exactly. I do remember breaking the shell, and roasting the acorns in the oven. They became ready to eat, with or without salt or sugar. Delicious is how I would describe roasted acorns. I took other acorns, and before it was over with, I had tasty acorn muffins, enough to share with professor and classmates.

I only made acorn muffins once, but I would be willing to do it again. Here we have an edible, natural food, right in our own yard, and instead of eating them, we walk on them. Nature is abundance. Just look around.

Kenneth Fach, REALTOR, ePRO
Weichert, REALTORS-Anchor
1607 Village Square Boulevard, Suite B 103
Tallahassee, Florida 32309
Direct/Text 850-339-5753

Each office is independently owned and operated.