Style had origins in India, Britain

[Guest guest]

Style had origins in India, Britain

 

Renewed interest in bungalows reflects a quest for the simple and

genuine.

 

By Whitney Gould | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Posted February 2, 2003

What exactly is a bungalow?

 

Most are 1- or 1 1/2-story dwellings. The style is characterized by

its broad horizontals and low overhanging roof, typically supported

by chunky columns. A porch may sweep across the entire width of the

facade. The interior usually has oak woodwork, hardwood floors,

leaded glass and lots of built-ins including inglenooks, bookshelves

and buffets.

 

The bungalow has its roots in the 18th-century thatched-roof huts in

the Indian province of Bengal. British colonialists adapted these low-

slung bangalas, as they were known, for their summer retreats and

rural compounds.

 

Bungalow design also was influenced by army tents, English cottages

and the British Arts and Crafts movement of the late 19th century,

which emphasized simple handmade furniture, crafts and home design in

reaction to the impersonality of the Machine Age.

 

According to American Bungalow, a quarterly magazine devoted to the

style, the first bungalow in this country was built in 1879 on Cape

Cod, Mass. A decade later, bungalows sprouted in California, where

land was cheap and affordable housing was in great demand. Before

World War I, a good bungalow could be had for as little as $900.

 

Between 1910 and the mid-1920s, the bungalow was the dominant housing

form in Milwaukee, says Carlen Hatala, a staffer for the city's

Historic Preservation Commission.

 

The earliest examples, descended from the humble workers' cottage,

were clapboard with extended rafter tails and open porches. By

the '20s, bungalows had begun to use details from the period

architecture popular back then, including Colonial, Tudor and

Mediterranean Revival styles. Brick and stucco became common building

materials.

 

"Even people who were prosperous business owners, who could have

chosen other types of housing, built bungalows," Hatala says.

 

"It wasn't until later, in the '30s, that people decided bungalows

weren't classy enough for them."

 

Milwaukee bungalows are featured in the Nov. 15 issue of American

Bungalow. The magazine's publisher, John Brinkmann, calls

Milwaukee "one of the great undiscovered treasure troves of bungalows

in America."

 

As much as the bungalow was a retreat from the overblown mansions of

the Victorian era, Brinkmann says, the renewed interest in the style

owes something to the back-to-the-city generation's quest for things

that are simple and genuine.

 

"Bungalows just feel homey," he says. "You open the door and walk

right into the heart of the home. There's no pretense, no parlor

where you're put on ice."

 

Hatala agrees. "There's a growing interest in simpler lifestyles,"

she says. "A lot of people are tired of the McMansion look and of

being separated from their neighbors by half an acre of land. And

they don't want to be burdened by so much 'stuff.' "

 

Bungalows, she says, answer those yearnings. "And they're more

affordable than a lot of new housing out in the suburbs