446 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
Four California Bungalows 
By Kate Greenleaf Locke 
St) HE first American bungalow was built 
¥ in California and grew out of my wish 
for a house, which, being all on one 
floor, would simplify the problem of 
housekeeping. 
I remember that my desire reached 
out for something long and low and 
spreading; I had an instinctive feeling that the conform- 
ation of the landscape and the growth of trees and 
shrubbery called for a building of this style of archi- 
tecture, and the little box-like house which twenty years 
ago represented the home of moderate cost in this 
beautiful semi-tropical region did not appeal to me. 
In a land where the fig, the orange and the olive 
tree furnished a picturesque and romantic foliage, where 
broad-leaved tropical plants grew abundantly and with- 
out coaxing, and where sunlight and moonlight wove 
each an individual enchantment unlike any other sun- 
light or moonlight, I had a conviction that something 
should be evolved architecturally which would be com- 
mensurate in artistic and picturesque suggestion with this 
setting and environment. 
The elongated lines, the low-pitched roof and the 
broad eaves of the bungalow of India seemed to fur- 
nish forth the idea that I needed. It was by virtue 
of its oddity absolutely removed from all that was 
commonplace, it held the simple lines which were appro- 
priate to an inexpensive house in a new country, and it 
G («( Nee 
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Bungalow No. |. 
The simplest type. 
November, 1909 
Cost, $1200. 
other houses costing five times as much, or perhaps more. 
In the light of these recent changes it is clear that the 
man with a small salary, and even the laboring man, may, 
permitted a vast deal of variation on the original theme in 
its construction. 
In order to appreciate the superior value, artistically 
speaking, of the bungalow we have but to contrast the inex- 
pensive houses here pictured 
with the small house costing 
from two to four thousand dol- 
lars built a score of years ago. 
Twenty years back, when a man 
had but two thousand dollars to 
put into the building of his 
house, he resigned himself to 
one without architectural value ; 
he attempted no special beauty 
of line in its construction and 
aimed merely to put a roof 
over his head. 
An architect in those days 
was seldom employed to design 
a cheap building, and the man 
himself would have been aghast 
at the thought of attempting to 
compete with his wealthy neigh- 
bors in’ the intrinsic beauty of 
his house. 
It had not at that time en- 
tered into the calculations of 
the man of moderate means 
that he could live beautifully if 
he chose to do so, and that he 
could have a house built on 
artistic lines which would 
compare favorably with many 
GRASS COURT 
Brick PORCH 
BED Room 
Z/VING ROOM 
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DINING ROOM | 
| es WZ 
OOM 
BED ROOM 
| Co. ICLo. 
Floor plan of Bungalow No. | 
if it please him, cherish ideas as to the architecture of his 
house. The introduction of 
the bungalow-cottage as a 
feature of modern building has 
undoubtedly largely influenced 
this result, for it has spread 
from California to the Atlantic 
coast, and many _ suburban 
houses throughout the United 
States, as well as summer 
homes in the mountains and 
beside the sea, are assuming 
this form. 
There are certain features 
which are inevitable in the 
house which qualifies as a bun- 
galow, and a certain atmos- 
phere which is as necessary to 
distinguish it as that with which 
an artist seeks to pervade his 
canvas; it can sink easily in its 
cheaper form into an ordinary 
cabin or be built, with more 
money and less artistic instinct, 
into a commonplace (though, 
perhaps, expensive) house. 
Thus, it will be seen that there 
is a necessity for a realization 
of just what these features are 
and in what lies the charm 
