What is a Bungalow?
Mention the word bungalow and people will often joyfully recall their childhoods either growing up in or spending summers in these truly American homes and cottages. And many others will ask: What’s a bungalow? For the former group, a bungalow will be one of hundreds of thousands of homes built across the United States roughly between the years 1880 to 1930[i]. Most of these homes have several things in common, and though many are cookie cutter replicas of each other, what any one person calls a bungalow can vary as much as people themselves.
The general description of a bungalow is, more accurately, a description of characteristics that are common to bungalows than that of any one home. The commonalities of homes people call bungalows include having one to one-and-one-half stories, large overhangs to shade the windows, large front and sometimes rear porches, and simple details that highlight the natural beauty of materials they are built from, especially the wood details. They are also solidly built homes, often crafted from local hardwoods, even inside the walls of the home.
For those who ask what a bungalow is, the above description leaves out a longer story of how these homes came to be some of American most cherished dwellings. Bungalows originated in the 17th century as sailors’ homes created by the East India Trading Company. Referred to as Banglas, these thatched roof cottages had low roofs with verandahs built all around them. Their open, ventilated style was well-suited to the fair-skinned Europeans who were not used to India’s fierce heat. The British continued to modify the Bangala style to suit their needs and sensibilities and began to use bungalows as luxurious lodgings for the high ranking officials during the British Raj, the period of British control over India. These royal abodes were typically built in the highlands to escape India’s heat, thus the earliest bungalows were essentially suburban homes.
Jane Powell and Linda Svensdsen captured the significance of these early bungalows in their book BUNGALOW: THE ULTIMATE ARTS AND CRAFTS HOME.
“As travel to India became easier in the mid-nineteenth century and communications improved, accounts of life in bungalows began to filter back to England. In a country beginning to feel both the good and bad effects of the Industrial Revolution, the bungalow and the life lived in it seemed exotic and romantic. For the (upper-class) British, the idea of living far from crowding, pollution, class struggle, increasing urbanization, and the complexities of life, and instead having a simple home surrounded by gardens full of exotic tropical plants, and servants that waited on you hand and foot, seemed like a very fine thing.”[ii]
It wasn’t long before the notion of an idealized life in the country spread back home to England and bungalows began to spring up in the then-fashionable Kent resorts of Westgate-on-Sea and Brichington. The fact that these first bungalows appeared at the sea shore reflected the growing belief in the benefits of fresh air. The Industrial Revolution brought with it congestion and overcrowding in cities which lead to romanticized view of suburban or country living. The exotic history of the bungalow made it well-suited to this romanticized view.
[i] American Bungalow Magazine Website http://www.americanbungalow.com/all-about-bungalows/what-is-a-bungalow
[ii] Powell, Jane and Linda Svensdsen, Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts And Crafts Home (Gibbs Smith, Layton, UT 2004) 28
