What makes it a ranch
A ranch house is one story and long. It spreads across the lot under a low-pitched roof with wide eaves that shade the windows. The plan is open, the living spaces face a patio or backyard, and the garage is attached. From the street, look for board-and-batten or horizontal wood siding mixed with stucco or brick, a brick or stone chimney, a big picture window, and sometimes decorative shutters or a dovecote on the garage gable.
The idea draws on Mexican-era adobe haciendas and the plain wood farmhouses of the West. Cliff May's houses made it explicit: one room deep, shaped like an L or a U around a courtyard, with a covered outdoor corridor doing the work of a hallway and big windows facing the back. Over time the style split. The Traditional Ranch leans on history, with shutters, board siding and rustic details. The Contemporary Ranch blends the same low form with the cleaner geometry of mid-century modern, adding clerestory windows and abstract screens. The smaller tract versions are often called Minimal Ranches.
How LA got so many
The city's historic context statement on the ranch house traces early forms to a 1903 house near Pasadena by Charles and Henry Greene, since demolished. The person most tied to the style is Cliff May, a San Diego native with no formal architecture training. He designed his first ranch house on speculation in San Diego in 1931, built roughly 50 there, and moved his practice to Los Angeles later in the decade.
In 1939 May began Riviera Ranch, a small subdivision of custom ranch houses off Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood, with deed restrictions to keep the style intact. His Cliff May Experimental House on Old Ranch Road there is a City Historic-Cultural Monument. Sunset magazine spread his work nationally with pattern books in 1946 and 1958. In the 1950s, May and architect Chris Choate designed prefabricated tract ranch homes, and the LA Conservancy credits May with designs for about 18,000 tract houses and more than 1,000 custom ones.
Gerard Colcord, Wallace Neff, Paul R. Williams and others added ranch houses to their work too, and custom ranches went up in Bel Air, Brentwood, Pacific Palisades and the Valley hills through the 1930s and 40s.
The mass-produced version started with developers Fritz Burns and Fred Marlow, who built Windsor Hills in 1938 and Westchester in 1941 with pared-down ranch houses. After World War II, with FHA and VA loans behind it, the ranch became the default new house, and whole neighborhoods of them filled the San Fernando Valley, By some accounts, 8 of every 10 new houses built in the 1950s took some form of the ranch look.
Where to find them
- The Valley. North of Ventura Boulevard, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Tarzana and Woodland Hills are mostly 1940s to 1960s ranch homes on lots sized for a pool. Granada Hills has 1950s and 60s ranch homes on old citrus land, some with fruit trees still in the yard.
- Westchester. Westchester grew from the Burns and Marlow tracts near Manchester and Sepulveda into streets of one-story traditional and ranch houses.
- Brentwood and Pacific Palisades. Brentwood has Riviera Ranch and the ranch homes and horse properties of Mandeville Canyon, and Pacific Palisades has custom ranches from the same era.
- Hidden Hills. Developer A.E. Hanson, who had already created Rolling Hills on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, began Hidden Hills in 1950 as a gated community of large lots with bridle trails, and it became its own city in 1961.
- The Peninsula. Palos Verdes Estates added ranch homes among its 1920s Mediterranean houses, and Rancho Palos Verdes is mostly 1960s and 70s single-story and split-level ranch homes facing the ocean.
- Long Beach. Rancho Estates, built in 1953 and 1954, is the largest tract May and Choate designed, with about 700 homes. See the Long Beach guide.
Buying one: what to look for
Original, expanded or rebuilt. Look for second-story additions, converted garages, enclosed patios and fronts redone as a modern farmhouse. Ask which parts are original (beams, chimney, windows, siding) and ask for permits on every addition. In the City of LA, permit records are on file with LADBS, the building department.
Inspection points specific to the style:
- Foundations. Many postwar tract houses sit on a concrete slab, while older and custom ranches are often on a raised foundation over a crawlspace. On a raised foundation, ask whether the house has been bolted and its cripple walls braced. On a slab, ask about any past slab leaks.
- Plumbing and sewer. Houses from the 1940s through the 1960s may have galvanized water lines and cast iron drains, sometimes running under the slab. Clay and Orangeburg sewer pipe from the era can crack or collapse, so a sewer camera inspection is smart.
- Low-slope roofs. Low pitches shed water more slowly than steep roofs. Check the roof's age, the flashing at chimneys and skylights, and the eaves for rot.
- Electrical and materials. Some houses built from about 1965 to 1973 were wired with aluminum branch circuits, which an electrician can evaluate. Acoustic ceilings, floor tiles and mastics from the era may contain asbestos, which matters before any remodel.
Size and design rules. City of LA single-family lots fall under the Baseline Mansionization Ordinance, and hillside lots under the Baseline Hillside Ordinance, both of which cap how much a house can grow, so check them before planning a second story. Hidden Hills, Palos Verdes Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes are their own cities with their own building and view rules. A few ranch houses are designated Historic-Cultural Monuments, and City Planning lists the city's historic districts.
For the two-story Colonial and Cape Cod houses on many of the same streets, see traditional homes.
Questions people ask
What is a California ranch house?
It's a one-story house with a long, rambling footprint, a low-pitched roof with wide eaves, an open plan and rooms that open onto a patio or yard. Common details include board-and-batten siding, brick or stone chimneys, big picture windows and an attached garage. Cliff May did more than anyone to popularize it.
Who was Cliff May?
Cliff May was a San Diego-born designer often called the father of the ranch house. He built his first one in San Diego in 1931, moved his practice to Los Angeles in the 1930s, developed Riviera Ranch in Brentwood, and sold designs for about 18,000 tract ranch homes, including Rancho Estates in Long Beach.
Where are the ranch homes in Los Angeles?
Postwar ranch neighborhoods cover much of the San Fernando Valley, including Encino, Woodland Hills, Tarzana, Sherman Oaks and Granada Hills, plus Westchester near LAX. Larger custom ranch houses sit in Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Hidden Hills and on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
What should I inspect in a ranch house in LA?
Common items include the type of foundation, galvanized or cast iron pipes, clay or Orangeburg sewer lines, roof condition on low slopes, and permits for any second story or garage conversion. Some materials from the era may contain asbestos, which matters before a remodel.
