Give your Own Ranch Style Home Your Expression

I grew up in  ranch style homes. We moved into another and another ranch style home all the way from southern California, to New Mexico, and then to northwest Florida where I lived the bulk of my life so far. Here in Tallahassee, there are many ranch style homes, built in the 50’s, 60’s 70’s and early 80’s. Most have a brick exterior. Those were the days when brick was more abundant, and had a lower cost. Brick is always a preferred exterior for its strengh.

 I know how these homes are, and during many years, I became bored with them, since there are so many, and they so often look the same. In later years, I moved out of ranch living, and bought contemporary style homes, thinking that is what I want, something newish, more interesting. Then, I began to miss the ranch style home that I grew up in. I began to realize that the ranch style home is a structure to trust for its  strenght, adaptability, and permanence, and use of local materials, such as wood and brick.  Now, I love the ranch style home more than ever.

The Prodigal Son story in the bible comes to thought. The youngest son took his inheritance, and ran away from home. He spent his inheritance in riotous living thinking that life was better than “back at the ranch” so to speak. He lost everything, and had to beg for his food. Out of desperation, and guilt, he went back home hoping his father would forgive him, and take him back in. This is exactly what the father did. You see, the father had that higher love, that divine Love that sees only perfection and goodness. That Love took the son back in. The father inbibed the spirit of the Golden Rule, and had nothing but lovingkindness expressed towards the son. Also, the son was sincerely sorry for what he did, and felt the father love, and began to see things the right way, the divine way. He saw that he had the kingdom already, right where he grew up, and did not need to look for a better life beyond the homefront.

If you live in a ranch style home, you know that you can decorate it to your liking. That it is good that the structure is simple, since you the homeowner, can make it something you want it to be. Think of the hanging plants, the yard landscaping, the paint around windows and on doors, the ways you can change the facade if you wish, the things you can do inside the home to really give it its uniqueness. With the ranch style home it is the interior that can be turned into a masterpiece of living. So much can be done. It is the outside where we see a simple rectangular shape. I see more than ever, that the ranch home is a chunk of clay, waiting for a grateful creator to give it its interior qualities.

When we see a ranch home we are looking at an early experience with space and horizontal lines. The ranch style home popularized the open floor plan which everyone seems to want today. We like the feeling of open space. The many contemporary homes today, are extensions to this early experiment of space and light in the ranch style homes.

Defining Ranch Styles Homes to Buyers and Realtors

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.

Tallahassee Ranch Style Home Basics

The ranch style home, with its low pitch, gable roof, typically fits in very well with the environment, and in its pure form, uses natural, and local materials. Tallahassee, Florida, has many ranch styles homes, and many of these are currently for sale. Ranch style homes are inside Tallahassee, and outside the city. In fact, ranch style homes are all over America, and have been since the 1940’s.

What is a ranch style home? This is a genuinely all-American architectural home style which was popular with the jet set generation of the post World War Two era. Soldiers came home from the war needing homes. Ranch style homes were built in great quantity and filled up suburbia as communities started to grow outward. With the automobile boom, people could live further from the town center, and commute long distances. Many ranch homes were built on big yards, at least big, relative to the yards offered by many of today’s new subdivisions. The ranch home was the perfect answer to a growing young family, and the need for a decent place to live. They were easy to build, and very affordable, and typically still are.

A ranch style home is a horizontal, low-lying, rectangular structure, which can be U shape, or L shape rectangular. The garage is an important part of the design, although, not all ranch style homes have garages. Later, split level, or raised ranch style homes became popular, allowing for more space within the home. However, there were always more one story ranches.

With a typical ranch style home, getting onto the roof to rake the leaves is no difficult task, since the roof is close to the earth, and the roof’s gable is low-pitched. I know it is easy to get on and off the roof. I did plenty of that when I was a teen growing up in a ranch style home. I just needed a small ladded, with just a few steps, and I was on the roof doing my regular task of sweeping, and raking the pine needles from the many pine trees that circled our Milton, Florida ranch style home.

The exterior of a ranch style home is simple. Here in Tallahassee, I see much creativity to bring interest to the facade of these kind of homes. People decorate the front with flowers, well kept shrubs, planters, mini waterfalls, sitting area, and rock garden. It is amazing what color and beauty you can bring to a simple, unadorned exterior.

The interior of ranch styles homes had open floor plans. In fact, the ranches made popular the open floor plan, and teh abundance of incoming light. The kitchen, dining, and living room were an open unit, with the master bedroom on one side of the open floor plan, and the smaller bedrooms off the hallway on the other end of the rectangular structure. These homes usually had a hallway.

Many of the features that homebuyers like today, open floor plan, spacious yard, big windows, or a lot of windows, brick or stone fireplace hearth, backyard patio or deck, separation of master bedroom from other bedrooms, built-in shelves, or cabinets, and natural materials, wood, brick, stone, all were made popular by the ranch style homes.

I suppose I love the ranch style home because I grew up in this kind of home. My friends lived in this style of architecture. I have more experience with ranchers. In fact, I am the self-designated, ranch style home specialist of Tallahassee, Florida. If you want to know more about ranch homes, or how to buy one, please contact me. Just remember one thing, there is always an abundance of ranch homes in northwest Florida, and in most places in America. The ranch remains an important home style, and most homes built today, in other architectural styles, traditional, contemporary, and other styles, contain elements characterizing ranch style homes.