Ranch House Plans
Our ranch house plans are popular with people from all areas of the country, and for good reason. Ranch home plans are almost always for one story houses, which can mean simpler construction methods, less time from start to finish, and a lower overall cost to build.
Ranch style house plans can also be more energy efficient since there’s no heat or cooling loss between levels, and little need for separate zone controls. And our ranch floor plans are easy to modify, allowing you to customize many areas of the home without worrying about affecting the rooms above.
Homes built from ranch style home plans are often described as a one-story in-line house with a low pitch gable roof. They often have large overhangs to protect the structure from the sun and the elements. The exterior facades are often a mixture of wood and brick, with shingles on the roof.
Traditional ranch style floor plans are a reflection of the hard working people in the informal western culture that first built them. Architects often incorporate this relaxed, informal style into the contemporary ranch house floor plans of today.
Common Characteristics of Ranch Floor Plans:
- Wide and rambling
- Almost always one story
- Very low-pitched roof
- Roof may be gabled or hipped
- Often cross-gabled
- Facade width is maximized
- Detailing minimal, but often with decorative shutters
- Moderate to wide eave
- Ribbon windows are common
- Large picture windows in living areas
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What follows are excerpts from “American Shelter”, written by Lester Walker, and published by Overlook Press in 1997
California Ranch
The California Ranch Style, also known as the Texas Ranch or Western Ranch Style, was created during
the Spanish Colonial period in the American Southwest in the 1830s. It was revived by California Bay
Region architects in the 1930s. It embraces the Spanish Colonial, Spanish Colonial Revival, Second
Bay Region, and Contractor Modern Styles.
In the 1950s almost any one-story, close-to-the-ground, rambling house was called a California ranch house. Having the ability to move freely about the house, without steps, into large private porches and patios from almost every room was living the “good life”.
The informality and straightforwardness of the California ranch house was somewhat responsible for, and reflective of, the 1950s American life-style. The street-oriented front porch of Victorian times was replaced by a private tear terrace. The garage became an important integral part of the house design. Private outdoor living was just as important as indoor and the character of later ranch houses was accomplished with materials applied over a rectangular box rather than with the manipulation of shape as the Bay Region architects had done so well.
The ranch house, as we know it today, was developed in California by Cliff May and other architects working in the San Francisco Bay Region. They used local vernacular building methods and materials found in barns, sheds, and other farm buildings such as split shake roofs, board and batten siding, and concrete slab floors to shape their designs. In the mid-1950s the California Ranch Style reached its peak in popularity as builders found this design easy to build and sell. The informality, livability, and ease of construction of the ranch house was responsible for its evolving into the Contractor Modern Style popular in the 1960s.