10 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
January, 1914 
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A Bungalow Built for $2,400 
By Charles Alma Byers 
Photographs by Lenwood Abbott 
O many houses are pictured and described 
as being examples of the “bungalow” type 
of architecture, when in actuality they are 
not, that it is interesting to be able to show 
pictures of a cottage which seem to comply 
in every respect with the terms which de- 
scribe what a bungalow should be. According to the gen- 
erally accepted definition of this somewhat overworked 
word, a bungalow is a dwelling one story in height, ample 
in area and provided with wide overhanging eaves and a 
veranda, or some other kind of semi-out-of-door living- 
room. With this somewhat flexible definition as a guide, 
American home-builders have produced bungalows of every 
conceivable architectural type. Renaissance bungalows ex- 
ist, although perhaps not in large numbers, and one daring 
builder has recently perpetrated what is described as “a 
bungalow in the Gothic style.” 
California is in many ways the land of the picturesque, 
and the architecture of the Pacific Coast shows this quality 
of picturesqueness. The first builders of permanent homes 
in this region were the early Franciscan friars, who estab- 
lished a chain of missions several hundred miles in length, 
and such of their buildings as remain to-day and the ruins 
of those which have now fallen into decay show' a pic- 
turesqueness which it would be difficult for present-day 
builders to equal. These beautiful mission buildings are 
almost invariably built about a patio, or central courtyard, 
and this particular feature of their architecture has been 
liberally adapted by the architects and builders who have 
come after these early friars and who have built their charm- 
ing homes and equally delightful surroundings in the fertile 
valleys and upon the sunny slopes they so faithfully tilled. 
The patio has therefore taken a strong hold upon the 
architecture of California, and has been incorporated into 
forms of architecture with which it is not often identified. 
A bungalow does not often contain a patio, but California 
is the land of the unexpected, and California architects 
follow the custom of the locality. Results, however, often 
prove the wisdom of transgressing what is at best but an 
unwritten rule of architecture; and if results are happy, and 
if no fundamental law has been broken, it may be safely 
assumed that no harm has been done. 
1 he pictures and floor plans show a very interesting home 
built in Los Angeles by Mr. P rank Simmonds, an architect 
of that city. 1 his very pleasing little bungalow is built 
some distance from the business quarter of Los Angeles 
itself, where sufficient space exists for the spreading and 
1 ambling architecture which belong to a bungalow, even 
though there is not the opportunity for the rural and tropi- 
cal surroundings which its quaintness deserves for a proper 
setting. 
The bungalow is built about three sides of a courtyard 
or patio, the fourth side being open to the street. The walls 
and the roof of the house are of shingles which have been 
stained a rich brown, though a part of the front wall is 
of concrete, which lends an appearance of great strength 
and massiveness to the structure. The plan has been so 
arranged that the living-room as well as the dining-room 
opens directly into the court, and the bedrooms open into 
a small hall which also opens into the little patio. This, of 
couise, brings all the rooms into close relation with this out- 
of-door spot, which is really the centre of the home. 
One approaches this Los Angeles bungalow by a broad 
night of co ncrete steps, which leads from the sidewalk to 
