The ranch-style home has its roots in Spanish colonial architecture of the 18th and 19th centuries, in which Spanish new world settlers focused on single-story homes that were easy to build using native materials. The low, simple roof lines with wide eaves helped shade windows from intense heat in the southwest U.S., and the style lent itself to both adobe/stucco construction or framed wood where timber was available. The style now known as ranch-style was introduced in San Diego, California, in 1932, and quickly became popular throughout California and the Southwest.
By the 1950s, the style reached its peak, with nine out every 10 American homes built in this style, which was particularly well suited to post-war America's explosion of young middle-class families. This is the period during which the automobile became a principal focus of American life, and ranch-style architecture is responsible for attaching garages directly to the home. No longer known as "ranch-style," these 1950s versions more often were called simply "ramblers," and few of their owners understood the origins of the style. In many cities all across America, there are huge tracts of hundreds or even thousands of ranch-style ramblers, all constructed between the end of World War II and the mid-1960s, and all flavored by a style that originated in California.
In the late 1960s, American architectural tastes began to shift away from ranch homes, which, in the hands of mass developers, had become extremely bland and uninteresting. The open floor-plans of the original ranch style, for example, had given way to boxy, cookie-cutter floorplans featuring many small rooms arranged around a single central hallway. Rising real estate prices also played a role, with smaller lot sizes making one-story homes less practical than building upward, in two-story structures. Soon, the principal residential architectural style in America became neo-eclectic, a style which borrowed freely (and somewhat uncontrollably) from any previous architectural styles.
The late 1990s saw the beginning of renewed interest in the ranch-style home as young homeowners began to return to the cities and inner-ring suburbs with a focus on existing homes rather than new construction. A rediscovered interest in the neighborhood lifestyle made tracts of ranch-style homes a natural target of like-minded families whose interests focused on parks and school. Such amenities were already present in these neighborhoods, which had been built 40 years earlier for large groups of young families.
Ranch-style homes were affordable for young families, they typically did not have the massive and expensive structural problems sometimes found in older historical styles, and they were common enough that it was easy to source materials for historically accurate remodeling. Older homeowners were also rediscovering the merits of ranch-style homes. For older homeowners who no longer wanted to climb stairs, the single-story designs made it easy to age-in-place, and these neighborhoods were friendly for walking. The surge in interest for ranch-style homes came from both directions—young homeowners looking for affordable homes in clearly defined neighborhoods and downsizing older homeowners for whom the style made for easier living.