Bungalowmania

More bungalow stock plan books have been published than any other house type. Even today bungalow plans are being copied and built as a resurgence of its popularity reaches a new generation of homeowners. Their affordability, coziness, and adaptability to many different climates and architectural styles make the bungalow as popular today as it was when it struck the American imagination in the early 1900s.

A by-product of the Arts and Crafts Movement, the bungalow took on its own personality in California. Called the “American dream house,” it allowed an owner of modest means to live "simply and artistically." California provided the perfect landscape--scenically, economically, and socially--for the proliferation of examples ranging from do-it-yourselfers and mass-produced builders' cottages to the extravagant “ultimate bungalows” of the Greene brothers [1] marked by sturdy construction and detailed finishes, most were located in bungalow communities close to transportation. They immediately attracted new families moving from inner-city apartments to their first homes.

California bungalows sprang up all over the world in good part because of the wide distribution of stock plan catalogs.

[1] For a detailed account, see The California Bungalow by Robert Winter, Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls, 1980.

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