The Ranch House

My Side of the Mountain is a favorite middle-grade novel. This companion gives background on the author, including an interview, questions to guide reading, clues to the story's themes, plot, characters, and setting, a glossary, writing and other activities, and more. If you loved My Side of the Mountain, you need this reading companion.

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 California ramblers. They have been styled Spanish, Japanese, and French; Monterey and International; Vernacular, Minimalist, and Modernist. From the 1797 Rancho Los Alamitos of Long Beach to such contemporary homes as the Miller Residence of Corte Madera, Ranch Houses unveils the great variety and the very finest examples of this multifaceted form. Including the work of such architectural luminaries as Cliff May, Richard Neutra, John Lautner, and Charles Moore, Ranch Houses is an essential resource for architects, home owners, and all those who aspire to the indoor/outdoor lifestyle that is the California Dream.

If you grew up in postwar America, chances are you lived in or next to a ranch-style house. And the things we loved about ranches when we liked Ike are still attractive—perhaps more so—today: the liberation that comes with open-plan living, the casual feel of easy kitchen access, the comfort of having bedrooms and children near at hand, the convenience of one-level living, and the everyday luxury of smooth indoor-outdoor flow. So it’s no surprise that the ranch is in style again—and this book showcases the best of it. Whether that style is the mid-century modern of Corbusier and the Eameses, or the cross-cultural awareness of the sixties, or the Pop Art and plastic of the seventies, Ranch House Style offers inspiration and instruction on re-creating these looks in your own home. But this book isn’t just for style mavens with professional decorators. Because if there’s any one completely American, democratic architectural style, it’s the ranch house. Ranches, in all their glory (and sometimes utter lack of it), are everywhere, usually affordable, just waiting for the right shag carpet to restore their hipness, the right flea-market find to liven up that patio. AndRanch House Styleshows how—with examples of the ranch’s flexibility for any decorating style, from Victorian and French Country to thoroughly contemporary, from primary homes in the suburbs to vacation getaways on the shore, from vintage gems to newly built originals. It also shows how to solve the special challenges that come with one-story living in a decades-old house, including how to expand into today’s more spacious footprints, how to renovate for modern amenities, and how best to use the ranch’s typically large plot of land. Remarkably, there hasn’t been a book on ranches available in decades. Despite the millions that exist across the entire country, the ranch has been ignored by the high-design community. To address that insult to ranch lovers, Ranch House Style also includes thoroughly researched, authoritative material on the style’s history, sociological context, architects, designers, and furniture. This is a serious work that stands alone in its field, in addition to being a beautiful, inspirational, and practical decorating book. So come visit the ranch—both the remarkably familiar and the strikingly original, from modest to luxurious, in styles from charming to mod—available in neighborhoods everywhere, here showing in all its coolness.

When Widow Tulip Jones of Bore, England, inherits a ranch in By-Golly Gully, Texas, and moves in with two trunks of tea, twelve pet tortoises, and three servants, hilarity ensues. The peaceful life suits the wealthy widow fine until word gets out and every unmarried man in Texas lines up to marry her. Widow Tulip and her small staff of three can't possibly run the farm and manage all the suitors, so she devises a plan—and it just might work. This story filled with giant tortoises, 1,000 brides, bad guys, a smart widow, and even a little romance is sure to get kids laughing.

A monograph of the informal style of the modern ranch house as reflected in the works of a forefront designer discusses his blending of California's Spanish-Mexican ranchos with cutting-edge technological features. 12,500 first printing.