At the same time I sneaked Cape Cod in as a new tag, I also slid Ranch House in to my list of architectural styles. The ranch house represented a revolution in the middle class house as it became prevalent after World War II in that it rotated the mass of the house from being perpendicular to the street to being parallel. Now, in the same street frontage in St. Louis might contain four houses, in the suburbs there would be only one ranch house. The primacy of the automobile becomes apparent. And density plummets.

Ranch houses, of course, are influenced by the architecture of the desert Southwest, and I can’t help but think that Hollywood brought this style to a greater audience across the United States. The living room, dining room and kitchen flowed together for entertaining, while the bedrooms were located down a long hallway that were largely not visible to guests (except maybe to throw their coats on during the winter). The garage was often hidden at a right angle to the front facade or all the way on the back of the house. Ornament was light, but there is often the use of brick and other wood posts for porches. Ranch houses were ubiquitous in new developments in the mid Twentieth Century, but they still pop up occasionally today.