So just reading through Wikipedia on bungalows..
did you know...
A
bungalow is a type of single-
story house that originated in
India. The word derives from the
Gujarati બંગલો
baṅgalo, which in turn derives from the
Hindi बंगला
baṅglā, meaning "
Bengali" and used elliptically for a "house in the
Bengal style".
The term is first found in English from 1696, where it was used to describe "bungales or hovells" in India for English sailors of the
East India Company, which do not sound very grand lodgings.
Developers began to use the term for smaller houses. In
Australia, the
Californian_Bungalow was popular after the First World War.In Britain and North America a bungalow today is a residential house, normally detached, which is either single story, or has a second story built into a sloping roof, usually with
dormer windows ("one and a half stories").
The
American Craftsman bungalow typified the common styles of the American
Arts and Crafts movement, with common features usually including: low-pitch roof lines on a gabled or hipped roof; deeply overhanging eaves; exposed rafters or decorative brackets under the eaves; and a front porch beneath an extension of the main roof.
California Bungalows, commonly called simply
bungalows in America, are a form of
residential structure that were widely popular across
America and, to some extent, the world around the years 1910 to 1925.
Bungalows are 1 or 1½ story houses, with sloping roofs and
eaves with unenclosed
rafters, and typically feature a
gable (or an attic vent designed to look like one) over the main portion of the house. Ideally, bungalows are horizontal in massing, and are integrated with the earth by use of local materials and transitional plantings. This helps create the signature look most people associate with the California Bungalow.
Unlike earlier private homes, true bungalows do not include quarters for servants, and have a simple
living room, entered directly from the front door, in place of
parlors and
sitting rooms, as well as a smaller
kitchen. The focal point of the living room is the
fireplace, and the living room often has a broad opening into a separate
dining room.
All common areas are on the first floor with cozy atmospheres. Though the ceilings are lower than in homes of
Victorian architecture, they are usually higher than in
ranch and other homes built later.
Attics are located under the sloping roof.
The bungalow became popular because it met the needs of changing times in which the lower middle class were moving from apartments to private houses in great numbers. Bungalows were modest, inexpensive and low-profile. Before
World War I, a bungalow could be built for as little as $900 although the price rose to around $3,500 after the war. Bungalow designs were spread by the practice of building from mail-order plans available from illustrated catalogs, sometimes with alterations based on local practice or conditions. A variety of firms offered precut homes, which were shipped by rail or ship and assembled on site. These were most common in locations without a strong existing construction industry, or for company towns, to be built in a short time. The majority of bungalows did include some elements of mass production; typically doors, windows, and built-in furnishings such as bookcases, desks, or folding beds were sourced from lumber yards or from catalogs.
Bungalows can be found in the older neighborhoods of most American cities. In fact, they were so popular for a time that many cities have what is called a "Bungalow Belt" of homes built in the 1920s. These neighborhoods were often clustered along
streetcar lines as they extended into the suburbs. Bungalows were built in smaller groups than is typical today, often one to three at a time. Examples of neighborhoods with a high concentration of bungalows include the Wood Streets in Riverside, California, and
Bungalow Heaven in Pasadena, California.
Resurgent interest in the
American Arts & Crafts or
American Craftsman movement (sometimes mistakenly referred to as
Mission style), and the emergence of special-interest publications such as
American Bungalow Magazine have contributed to the bungalow's recent popularity. Rising house prices nation-wide through the late 1990s and early 2000s as well as the central and convenient location of many bungalow-heavy urban neighborhoods have further fueled demand for these houses; as one example, some three-bedroom bungalows in San Diego can sell for $650,000 to $700,000, or more.
