No Longer Just Quintessentially American, The Swinging ’60s Ranch is Now Historic
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We don’t think about a ’60s ranch when we think about historic homes. The first thing that generally comes to mind is a stately Tudor or a charming Craftsman cottage. Something old.
But guess what? A house only has to be 50 years old to qualify as historic. So, those swinging ‘60s homes are now just that. They are also highly sought after because remodelers have figured that the bones of a 1960s ranch home are absolutely fantastic. It’s easy to open up the walls of a ranch, and the bathrooms lend themselves to updating because they were never tiny.
My parents bought a beautiful red brick ranch in San Antonio in 1959. It was rented out during our many years overseas and stayed in our family until 2017 and it was darned hard to part with.
When I Googled it a year later and saw the emotional gut-punch of renovations, I realized just how hot the ranch was for today’s buyers. Sure it hurts to see the changes, but had it not been mine, I’d probably have advised any seller to do what the buyers did, paint the brick, and enclose the columns. I’m dying to see what they did inside because I was dreaming up interior renovations for decades!
To think the ranch is historic is hard to digest.
Dissect the style and it makes perfect sense why remodelers are drawn to a ranch. The style is quintessentially American. Even though we see them as early as 1920, their popularity peaked in the late 1950s and ’60s when the design, created for livability and flexibility, got a little more dramatic. We started to see some swinging styles that included sunken living rooms and cathedral ceilings.
The ranch-style also brought us the concept of indoor-outdoor living, which has persevered and is yet another reason for their popularity.
Remodelers have also descended on the ’60s ranch because there are so many of them.
Zillow did some research and claimed nine out of 10 homes built in the 1950s and ‘60s were in the ranch style. So we have the perfect equation of plenty of homes in this style that are not challenging to reconfigure inside. It’s no wonder that they are attracting a younger demographic that never had the pleasure of living in them as kids and that they fly off the market the moment they are listed.
Maybe, just maybe, you’ll think a bit differently about historic preservation now and consider this the façade of any age and style of home can always be preserved. Simply gut the inside and create your dream home, but don’t disrupt the look of a neighborhood, regardless of the era.
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My parent’s 1959 home in San Antonio was recently completely redone and I LOATHE it. i understand your feelings!
I think the hardest part for me was the exterior update truly meant it was no longer my childhood home. But on the other hand, it was good because it was easier to let go. I’m just glad these homes are not being demolished so new families will create great memories in them.
It’s unfortunate that most of these ranch remodels, and most of what’s shown on this blog, show no reverance towards their period. Just a mass of open space in white/gray and almost all the same design style. A late mid century ranch that screams 2020.
Well, John, that’s an interesting comment. Every Thursday, I write a historic preservation post. I’m not sure we could show more reverence for period architecture than that. We even won a Preservation Dallas award for that column. Every Monday, I feature a lavish custom home, and they never look alike. We run a large variety of homes with differing interior styles every week. You must understand market drivers. We don’t live the way we did in 1960, with small bedrooms, a closed-off kitchen, and a dark family room you could barely fit a family of 4 into. Even our historic multi-million dollar mansions are updated inside. Keeping the facade intact yet somewhat updated allows the character of a neighborhood to be maintained. This is especially important to understand when we see homes of this age which the general public does not yet largely view as historic. People who thought demolition was the only answer see these remodels and are inspired to update rather than tear down and that’s a good thing on so many levels.