On yesterday’s walk through an unfamiliar block, noticed an atypical house. It’s a rancher turned sideways, with the narrow end forward. These houses were a common way of creating ‘variety’ in the 50s, but not common around here.
First thought: Ranchers were originally bungalows turned sideways, so a rancher turned sideways is just a bungalow again.
Second thought: I briefly lived in an end-forward rancher in Norman.
Google Streets found it easily. Not much change since 1978. It looks bungaloid, but it’s NOT a bungalow and NOT a proper rancher. The front door is at the far corner of the living room, which feels wrong, and the kitchen is the left front room.
Bungalows vs ranchers are essentially different. Turning a rancher sideways DOESN’T revert it to bungalism.
Here’s a default bungalow. Double-barreled shotgun. Noisy rooms (living, dining, kitchen) run along one side, and quiet rooms (bed, bath) run along the other side.
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Here’s a default rancher. Again the noisy rooms run along one side, which is now a short side, and again the quiet rooms run along the other side, except that the bathroom was squeezed out of the short side and now fits between the quiet and noisy sides.
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After turning the rancher sideways and mirroring it to resemble the Norman house, here’s the result, neither fish nor fowl.
Now the noisy rooms are on the front and the quiet rooms are on the back. The two ‘proper’ plans put the kitchen on back, for easy access to alley and clothesline, and to let Mom monitor the kids.
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Later thought: Turning a true bungalow sideways gives the same bad result as turning a true rancher sideways. Here’s my default bungalow turned sideways and mirrored:
The earliest ‘wide’ houses were simply bungalows turned sideways. Here’s a plan from a Dover book of postwar houses:
Living and kitchen on front, kitchen can’t see back yard. The disadvantages must have been revealed by experience, leading to the altered topology.
Polistra's Mill 