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Exhibit Honors Cliff May's California Ranch Style
Cliff May's midcentury home designs profoundly impacted architecture. A 2012 California exhibit showcases his work
Cliff May's innovative ranch home designs give him a place of honor in the residential hall of fame. He introduced comfort and convenience into postwar '50s homes, from motorized skylights and bathroom vanity cabinets to single-lever faucets and whole-house intercoms. He incorporated features of large, custom ranches into more modest and affordable ranch homes, and gave them a sense of spaciousness as well as strong connections between inside and outside.
May's work incorporated environmental design before it was recognized as such, says Dan Gregory, author of Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House. Careful consideration of sun angles, wind directions, vegetation and more went into his designs — concepts that many now seem to be just revisiting.
May's pioneering designs are celebrated in a new exhibit, Carefree California: Cliff May and the Romance of the Ranch House, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, through June 17, 2012.
May's work incorporated environmental design before it was recognized as such, says Dan Gregory, author of Cliff May and the Modern Ranch House. Careful consideration of sun angles, wind directions, vegetation and more went into his designs — concepts that many now seem to be just revisiting.
May's pioneering designs are celebrated in a new exhibit, Carefree California: Cliff May and the Romance of the Ranch House, at the University of California, Santa Barbara, through June 17, 2012.
Cliff May introduced a continuous, motorized skylight into the fourth home he built for himself. The skylight, which runs the full length of the roof ridge, provides generous light to the interior spaces and, when open, brings the night sky and stars inside. Seems to me that children raised in such a house would naturally become astrophysicists.
May built five homes for himself and used each as a laboratory to explore ideas and tinker with gadgets. He also, of course, used these homes as sales tools. In fact, May's wife never knew when a visitor was likely to stop by, so the home had to always be in tip-top condition (this was the 1950s, after all). The fourth house was 1,600 square feet.
Besides the skylight, May's innovations in this house included movable walls that allowed the space to be reconfigured at will. May and his architect partner, Chris Choate, designed 6-foot-high cupboards on casters that could be moved around to form the desired spaces.
Besides the skylight, May's innovations in this house included movable walls that allowed the space to be reconfigured at will. May and his architect partner, Chris Choate, designed 6-foot-high cupboards on casters that could be moved around to form the desired spaces.
A shallow-pitched gable roof forms a spacious and comfortable living room, while the white walls and ceiling make for a luminous interior.
Many of the 950- to 1,200-square-foot ranches May built at Lakewood Rancho Estates have been restored and brought up to current codes so they can be enjoyed by a new generation of residents.
Many of the 950- to 1,200-square-foot ranches May built at Lakewood Rancho Estates have been restored and brought up to current codes so they can be enjoyed by a new generation of residents.
Interior walls of translucent glass, another of May's innovations, allow light to travel from room to room. And that beautiful, dark concrete floor forms a base and lends a sheen, allowing the light to bounce around even more.
The roots of May's design approach can be seen in this sketch for a small home. In the simple plan, arranged around an inner courtyard space, just about every room has a connection to the outside — perfect for the mild California climate.
May's ranch homes used the colonial Spanish tradition of covered passageways, or corredores, to connect rooms and blur boundaries between the outside and inside.
This sketch shows all of the elements of a Cliff May ranch:
- The courtyard enables each room to have access to a private outdoor space.
- The low-pitched gable roofs rest gently on the walls.
- The porte-cochere entry recognizes the importance of the car.
- The low garden walls define outdoor living spaces for rooms that might not have access to the courtyard.
Cliff May's floor plans are real lessons in design, even though he was self-taught and not a trained architect. The open planning, marriage of inside and outside spaces and movement throughout the home are all orchestrated with great skill. It's as if Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe had relocated to Southern California and become relaxed and laid back in the process.
May was a master promoter and marketer of his projects, and he was in the right place at the right time with the right idea. This was post–World War II America. Land was cheap, gas was cheap and owning a home was central to the American dream.
In places like Sullivan Canyon Ranches and Lakewood Rancho Estates, May introduced the affordable ranch and ideal of homeownership to the masses.
Affordable and easily financed, Cliff May ranches embodied the lifestyle and amenities that the expanding middle class yearned for.
From small and affordable to large, sprawling and custom, both ends of the architectural spectrum were handled deftly by May. His ability to respond to the site and create a home both comfortable and livable, whether modest or lavish, is what makes his work relevant for us today.
More on Carefree California: Cliff May and the Romance of the Ranch House
More on Carefree California: Cliff May and the Romance of the Ranch House
