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The American Ranch House, Revisited
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In Grand Blanc, Michigan, on the edge of swamp, field, forest, and pump was the first house of my youth, a little rambler. You know the type: single-level, vaulted ceiling, low-pitched roof, block on slab with an attached garage. A humble house for a family who cofounded the city some 135 years earlier. Well, by then our family had forgotten its heritage. But there we were, Mom, Dad, brothers and sister sitting snug before the rabbit-eared television flickering with snowy images of President Eisenhower. If born before 1965, you get the picture.
Beyond the picture, the long straight highway, Dort Highway that closely merged with I-75; built in 1957, the year after my birth. A wonder. From the rambler’s driveway my family could be in Florida, five states away within a day, within sixteen hours. Or as Grandma would do, jog right to Chicago, pick-up Route 66 and see the USA in her Chevrolet, arriving at my cousins’ house in just a few days. Then we thought the world fast. But who can predict the future. American Ranch House
American Ranch House, Typical 1959 American Suburb
Even then I knew that Grandma was following the pioneer trail (Route 66 followed Beale’s Wagon Trail, the pioneer trail of the Conestoga wagons) and that my California family were homesteaders. An uncle owned a horse ranch, a lean-to, 50-gallon barrels, and acre upon acre that would become Palm Desert city. Too, Uncle Polly was a champion roper, famous, a real cowboy with a real ranch. No, not his lean-to ranch ranch but his suburban ranch, a Mid-Century Modern of the Cliff May variety. Uncle Polly was also a restaurateur, and Aunt Helen was a starlet. This in the mid-60s when ranch houses were not built by the block but by the square mile.
Back in Michigan, Aunt Eileen and Uncle Paul owned a large custom ranch in the high style, that brick, board & batten that puts one in mind of a 19th Century homesteader ranch, citified, “T” shaped, electronics, sliding doors, extra-wide garage, turned-wood half-walls, picture window, laundry, two baths, flower garden, trimmed lawn and curving walk, like the Bradys on one floor, a home full in activity, visitors, adventures, and love.
American Ranch House, 1950s Ranch House Plan.
Uncle Jerry and Aunt Louise owned a split-level ranch in hilly Flint, Uncle Bill and … hmm, it seems that all the aunts and uncles coast to coast lived in ranches, ranches of each and every type, those mentioned and the storybook rambler, the California rambler, the colonial ranch, the traditional ranch, those low-slung ranches of solid brick and broad windows, lined like factory queues mile after long mile, suburb after suburb, city after city. American Ranch House
At the height of the ranch house vouge, 1955, there were 1.65 million housing starts; of these, 9 out of 10 were ranches, and the pace did not slow. Year after year, decade after decade there were some 1.5 million annual starts, et cetera. No wonder that every person I knew lived in a ranch, just like the ranches of the pioneers, settlers, cowboys, riflemen and lawmen and villains, just like the Cartwrights at Ponderosa. Well, not like those. But even so, we were all looking westward, then.
1970s National Rodeo Championship, Dillon, Montana. credit: Larry Jones
The first time that I pioneered west was in a Nova, fresh off the sorority courts, yet in tennis whites. Larry and I drove through the Badlands and on to Dillion, Montana to visit our high school friend, Marty, who had become a mountain man. That the weekend of the national rodeo championship when the town was brimming with high-spirited cowboys who lustily whistled after my tennis whites. Soon, well, within minutes, Marty tucked me in to Gracie’s Second Hand store where Gracie got me up in cowboy hat and boots, tobacco, and, best of all, a National Champion Rodeo Belt that some luckless cowboy had recently hocked.
Belted as I was, down the street as I was going, respectful cowboys nodded for notice and appreciation. What would you do? I rolled a cigarette, entered the saloon, sat to poker and got drunk. A proper cowboy. Sometime in the dizziness, beneath the stars, we three picked up a companion who spoke some Montana dialect I recognized from Hollywood movies, and so could make him out. Seems he was set on taking us to the fishing hole at his ranch, the best hole thereabouts. We went.
Abandoned Western Ranch at Sunset. credit: Scott Book
I don’t remember much, though the moon was full, the sky big, the stars numberless, and the night’s ghost-light illuminated a ranch that I knew, but not in dreams nor in life. You know how the full-moon’s witching hour stands us out of time. Next morning, awakening to howdy-dos, I saw the ranch for what it was, grandfather to the many ranches I had come to know. And like a grandfather he was quiet, telling more in a glance than a thousand encyclopedias. He let me walk about, and here and there allowed some wisdom, some observation, some brief commentary in the laconic way that the old speak with the young. From him I learned more about our country than all that televisions, newspapers, and college courses could tell.
These coming months at The Beautiful Home I hope to share with you what I learned from the old ranch, observations of who and what we are, commentaries of where we have been, and some wisdom from what we have lost. And that, that by these sharings we might preserve, might conserve the tradition of Western home and homestead, without which we are homeless.
At Uncle Polly’s American Ranch House, 1960s California.
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THE AMERICAN RANCH HOUSE, REVISTED
American Ranch House featured image, 1956 Customline 4d Sedan.
Michael J Curtis
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