1950s

 Minimal Traditional

1 Story

This style appeared after the Cape Cod and is typical of the horizontal look of the post-World War II suburbs. The floor plans are squarish, not rectangular as in the later California Ranch style. What is architecturally distinctive about this house?
From the front, this large version of the Minimal Traditional with its breeze way connecting 
the single-car garage to the house already looks similar to the later, rectangular California ranch.
Most Minimal Traditional houses have these features:
1 story with a squarish floor plan
hipped roof
 small picture window
 detached garage, maybe with a breeze connecting to the house

2 houses 2 eras.jpg (35842 bytes)This 1950s Minimal Traditional is an "infill" because it was built much later than the surrounding houses, as its 1880s-1890s Queen Anne neighbor shows.
Look at another version of the Minimal Traditional and a much later version (1980s and 1990s with attached double-car garages), which the Geography 367 class has labeled Suburban Minimal Traditional.

 
 

Created by Randall Conklin on June 10, 1997; last revised on 06 June 2008.