While we are all familiar with Eichler homes in Northern California and Eichler and Anshen’s story, this blog post is about their counterpart in Southern California, Clifford May, generally considered the inventor of what became known as the archetypal 20th century “ranch house”.
May’s design evolution was based mostly on the 17th to 19th century’s Spanish colonial architecture of southern California ranchos. May himself was born in 1908 in one of these ranchos, the Los Flores Rancho in San Diego County.
Early on in his life May decided he would be good at designing houses. Although not formally trained he developed his own interpretation of characteristics of these early ranchos including the lack of an interior corridor; egress to each room was directly to and from the exterior. All circulation was in covered exterior walkways. Other characteristics May incorporated were thick (1’-3’) one story adobe exterior brick walls and level first floors with the exterior ground plain. Each room also had exterior walls on two sides to provide easy cross ventilation to keep the interior cool, while the thick adobe walls were able to absorb heat for nighttime warming. The plan was initially “L” shaped, but as a family grew another wing was usually added, making an enclosed courtyard resulting in a “U” shaped plan. The original ranchos’ exterior crowning glory was its simplicity of materials, colorful tile roofs that overhung the perimeter walls and openings, and a fancy hand carved, sometimes red, wooden front door as a welcoming gesture. The exterior private courtyard offered quite a bit of protection and privacy.
There is still an intact 1825 rancho in the old town part of San Diego called Casa de Estudillo, which was restored in 1910 and is now open to the public.
While May was not an architect and had no formal training, only a little bit of education while attending San Diego College, he did have a knack for obtaining clients and was good at articulating design ideas. He did not know how to draw; however he had a friend/partner, Chris Choate who did. Together they designed over 20,000 homes over the span of their 60-year careers.
Some of May’s early homes incorporating the rancho concepts can be seen in Choate’s illustrations below and are a part of both the USC Fine Arts Library and the UC Santa Barbara Architectural Archives.
In the late 1940’s Cliff May, similarly to Eichler, saw the need for post WWII family housing particularly in California. While Robert Anshen addressed the challenge from a Wrightian point of view, Cliff May looked at it from the rancho ideal. Both were searching for creative ways to bring modern living into affordable homes.
May’s designs in comparison to what Eichler and Anshen were doing to address the affordable housing issue can be best seen in the design of a project in Long Beach in the 1950’s called Rancho Estates (photos to follow) and in another, Riviera Rancho (no longer existing), on Sunset Blvd. in LA, its entrance signage and ad shown below.
The actual homes however were quite simple and relatively nice, and have been upgraded over the years, particularly in Long Beach’s Rancho Estates.
Incorporating simple post and beam construction, exterior circulation, cross ventilation, and large overhangs, May and Choate designed concepts very similar to those of Eichler and Anshen. Credit has always been given to May as the creative force behind the architecture as well as developer behind the hundreds of variations of homes at Rancho Estates:
Lastly in between the time periods of May’s early work and his work in the 1950’s he also designed many single family ranch houses for clients at the higher end of the income scale, including himself. Below is a typical home he designed in Montecito, California and a rendering of the Lear House in Los Angeles in 1958.
I believe that Robert Anshen’s inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright’s interpretation of what a ranch house is can be best exemplified in the design of Wright’s last designed house in 1959 for the Carl Schultz family in St. Joseph, Michigan.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Schultz Residence is a ranch house in the spirit of tenets laid down by Clifford May earlier in the century.
Blog post written by David Tritt, Senior Architect.
