While the colors on this Mid-Century Modern home designed by Cliff May, left, reflect contemporary tastes, the design elements are classic mid-century: vertical siding, rectangular windows, double exterior doors, and an interior that opens to a private rear garden. The rear living room wall in this home is almost all glass windows and doors. To see the interior of this home go here.
Where to find true Mid-Century Modern in Long Beach
Several Long Beach neighborhoods are filled with Mid-century Modern homes or hybrids of Mid-century and the Ranch house. Perhaps the most well-known are the ones designed by the noted architect Cliff May in the Rancho Park neighborhood near El Dorado Park.
Left, this is the second of three Cliff May floor plans used in the Rancho Park neighborhood in the early 1950s. Again, the color choices are contemporary. Originally the homes would have been white or off-white.
Cliff May’s Mid-Century homes were experimental
When built in the early 1950s, there were three floor plans in Rancho Park, all of them of average size for that era — which means modest by today’s standards. The builder commissioned May to create these 3 home plans as an experiment to see if mid-century design would appeal to middle-class buyers. Rancho was slightly ahead of its time with its Mid-Century architecture, but not for long. Within 10 years another builder, Joseph Eichler, designed his Mid-Century homes for the mass market home buyers, These homes, mostly in Northern California, became very desirable and remain so to today.
Architectural characteristics of Mid-Century Modern homes
Over the decades many homeowners modified these homes. Some homes remain close to their original design with signature features of Mid-century Modern homes:
– Post and beam construction
– Vertical siding
– Vaulted, cathedral or high ceilings in the interior
– Rectangular windows
– Floor-to-ceiling windows or sliding doors opening to a garden or patio
– Front façade with few windows
– Low pitched or, in some cases, flat roofs
Melding the indoors and outdoors was a basic concept for Mid-century Modern homes. But the “outdoors” was often “inward” with the view being toward the private rear garden or interior atriums rather than toward the street. To see the interior go here.
Part Mid-Century, part Ranch House
Adjacent to the Rancho neighborhood are other developments of quasi-Mid-century homes. Often they include some Mid-Century details incorporated into the Ranch House architecture of the 1950s. These, however, have a more mass-produced appearance and few remain untouched or un-remodeled by the owners.
Many features of mid-century-influenced, mass-produced design are shown in this home, left, which is not far from the Rancho neighborhood: vertical siding, thin pillars supporting the porch, wood shingle roof, rectangular windows. These features seems to be added to a Ranch House style home, the most popular family home design of that era. Inside, however, this home lacks the open space design and, instead, is broken up into small rooms.
Larger late Mid-Century homes near Rancho Park
Closer to the beach, the affluent Park Estates neighborhood contains significantly larger, custom-built late mid-century homes. Many of these were built a decade or so after the Rancho homes. While they still exhibit many similar characteristics they are not as austerely geometric as archetypal mid-century homes.
Left, this late mid-century home in Park Estates shows the characteristically bold use of stone in a massive wall at the entry. The interior fireplace is also a wall of stone.
While some of the homes in Park Estates have been remodeled beyond recognition, the majority are in pristine condition. The lots in this neighborhood are large which attracts many upscale homeowners. When available for sale, the prices in Park Estates in Long Beach match the size and condition of the homes.
Mid-Century design began to change
Not every homeowner during the 1950s and 1960s wanted the stark, geometric appearance typical of classic mid-century modern design, so builders incorporated other influences.
In this home in Park Estates, shown left, the “chalet style” was an influence that softened what could have been an austere modern design. The massive stone fireplace is, however, a hallmark of Mid-Century design.
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