Ranch Houses: Living the California Dream

With its archetypal open plan and reverence of indoor-outdoor living, the Ranch house is at the very heart of the California dream. When we picture California Ranch houses-the low-slung, informal dwellings that engulfed suburbs after World War II-we are thinking of just one part of a phenomenon that has its roots in early-nineteenth-century ranchos, and which continues today in houses that are startling and up-to-the-minute. Examples of the type have been called ranchos, ranchers, and Calif...