Bungalow

A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single- or one-and-a-half-storey. If a smaller upper storey exists, then it is frequently set in the roof and windows that come out from the roof. It may be surrounded by wide verandas. The first house in England that was classified as a bungalow was built in 1869. The term bungalow is derived from the word Bangla and used elliptically to mean "a house in the Bengal style". In the U.S., bungalows were first built as vacation homes, and were most popular between 1900 and 1918, especially with the Arts and Crafts movement. The style quickly developed into its own class of residential architecture whose ancestors include the Prairie School and American Craftsman. Different U.S. cities and regions in the early-to-mid twentieth century, from California to Chicago to New York, developed styles of bungalows unique to their geography, climate, landscape and social milieu. Organizations continue to celebrate the style, including the Kansas City Bungalow Club and the Twin Cities Bungalow Club. The popularity of the American movement was spearheaded by the Sears, Roebuck & Co.'s hugely popular mail-order Modern Homes program between 1908 and 1940. The company sold precut house kits, including many affordable, stylish Craftsman bungalows, shipped by rail to ordinary Americans, making homeownership accessible with unique financing and standardized, attractive designs that became iconic of the era's middle-class aspirations. One Massachusetts architect poked fun at the fashionable homebuilding movement in the article, "The Rampant Craze for the Bungle-oh." Another wrote a poem, "Bungal-Ode."