IS THIS A CRAFTSMAN BUNGALOW?

The Answer:

Not a Craftsman Bungalow, although it does incorporate the full repertoire of "Arts & Crafts" decorative elements.

Since a bungalow is a one story home, this two-story home can't be classed as a Craftsman Bungalow. Sure, it has a big front porch like a bungalow, but the big front porch alone is not enough to qualify a home as a bungalow. After all, most two-story late-Victorian  homes had big porches, but that doesn't make them bungalows.

This is simply a two-story home dressed up in all the Arts & Crafts stylistic gimmicks:

• deeply overhanging eaves
• decorative roof brackets
• massive porch columns
• strong emphasis on horizontal lines

Notice how the horizontal emphasis is achieved:

• The long span of the porch gable gives the impression of a broad, ground-hugging house, in spite of the substantial mass of the second story.
• The horizontal theme is strengthened by the broad bands of ganged casement windows on the second story rooms.

If the upstairs was much smaller we might call this home an Airplane Bungalow. But this home obviously has several rooms upstairs, rather than just a sleeping porch. It is best classified as "a two-story house with Arts & Crafts stylistic details."

Illustration by Luis Escalante. Copyright 2002 by Ken Lampton.