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Click photo for larger image
A house in Atlanta reflects a more literal Craftsman
influence with its stone half pillars and cottage-style windows. Below: The screened porches on these 1940s Seagrove, Florida, bungalows, otherwise the epitome of simplicity, make them speak with a marked southern accent.
Photo Courtesy of Robert M. Craig
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The southern bungalow, in its most common form, is more varied, more vernacular, and a bit younger than many of its relatives from other regions. It is perhaps best described as a raised, frame-constructed house, with its architectural detailing derived from Arts & Crafts inspirations. It is usually deeper than wide, with a prominent front porch and a roof of sufficient pitch to provide space for optional attic rooms lit by shed or gabled roof dormers. There are front- and side-gabled versions, with the former being more common. Like the shotgun house before it, the Southern bungalow is a climate-responsive design well suited to the South's hot, humid summers.
As many old-house devotees know, the name "bungalow" is a corruption of banggolo, a type of peasant hut native to Bengal in India. When British colonists adapted the form for summer homes on Bengali hillsides, their banggolos were characterized by broad roof overhangs and porches that sheltered sliding wall panels to let in cool breezes. The southern bungalow, however, didn't migrate directly from India, but spread from other regions of the United States through magazines and pattern books.
In the second decade of the 20th century, bungalow houses, along with oak Mission furniture, were icons of the Arts & Crafts movement then in vogue across the country. The style's popularity prompted the building of purist western-style Craftsman bungalows in the South in the early teens. This trend was followed in the 1920s and '30s by a tendency to adapt, rather than adopt the bungalow form. New Orleans builders, interestingly, applied Arts & Crafts detailing to the pervasive shotgun house before the raised bungalow became the more prominent form.
The southern predilection for clapboard siding and screened porches was a common derivation imposed on the Craftsman model, which was typically clad in stucco with open porches. In low-lying areas like New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, bungalows were raised up—sometimes as much as a full storey above the street—in defiance of the low-to-the-ground look that characterizes most bungalows. In the rural South, the bungalow could be quite vernacular, devoid of any Arts & Crafts detailing whatsoever-its bungalow status conveyed solely through its form, sense of proportion, and front porch configuration.
In its heyday between the wars, the southern bungalow was one of the most pervasive forms of new middle-class housing. After World War II, it was rapidly eclipsed by the ranch house. In fact, it's possible to trace a brief history of middle-class southern residential architecture though the declension from shotgun to bungalow to ranch house.
Today in new southern metropolises such as Atlanta, Houston, and Dallas, the bungalow is regarded as a significant historical type, whereas in antebellum bastions like New Orleans, Savannah, and Charleston, the bungalow is regarded as a modern idea.
One of the more significant contemporary developments for the southern bungalow is its emergent revival. In the acclaimed new urbanism community of Seaside, Florida, the southern bungalow is the most commonly prescribed residential building type in the town's urban code. The popularity of these highly publicized Seaside houses—which are quite vernacular in inspiration—has rekindled wider interest in the southern bungalow, particularly in resort areas along the Gulf Coast. The southern bungalow is not merely a recent historical type, but a viable housing model poised for a comeback.
Richard Sexton, the author of The Cottage Book and Parallel Utopias, writes and photographs from New Orleans.
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