As odd as this is for me to admit (again), ranch houses are growing on me. But, let’s clarify here, by ranch houses I mean those carefully designed, not your standard, modern ranch house. Ranch houses have an interesting history, and when considered in context, it is possible to appreciate the ranch house.
Clearly, the folks in Georgia are light years ahead of me in terms of appreciation and study of the ranch house. New South Associates has recently released, The Ranch House in Georgia: Guidelines of Evaluation. It is a beautiful, colorful, fun, thorough and intriguing publication — one that will make you look differently than ranch houses.
The Ranch House in Georgia
The Ranch House in Georgia discusses the context for ranches, their architectural typology, how to identify and categorize ranch houses, and their period of significance. I love it.
As far as I know, 200+ page document is only available as a PDF. If it were a book, I’d buy it!
If you’re interested, here’s the press release from New South Associates:
The Ranch House in Georgia: Guidelines for Evaluation was awarded national public history prize. The Guidelines also received an award from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Ranch House in Georgia: Guidelines for Evaluation, authored by Mary Beth Reed and Patrick Sullivan and designed by Tracey Fedor, lays the groundwork for the research, survey, and evaluation of the Ranch House in Georgia for preservation professionals. Funded by the Georgia Transmission Corporation, the document is one of the first in the nation focusing on this iconic mid-century house type. The authors collaborated with the Georgia Historic Preservation Division, the Georgia Transmission Corporation, and the Georgia Department of Transportation in the effort, producing a history of the Ranch House, a field guide for its identification, and evaluation tools to assess eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places. Since its release in 2010, the Guidelines has received the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Service Award and has been named recipient of The National Council on Public History’s 2011 Michael C. Robinson Prize for Historical Analyses that recognizes studies that directly contribute to public policy formation. The Guidelines and Georgia’s approach to Ranch House architecture have also been featured in an article by Dr. Richard Cloues of the Georgia Historic Preservation Division in the Winter 2011 issue of the Recent Past.
New South Associates is a women-owned small business providing cultural resource management services, both nationally and internationally. Incorporated in Georgia in 1988, the firm has grown to include offices in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The firm’s work has been recognized for its ability to integrate studies of sites and structures of the past, with planning and construction for the future. New South Associates is a historic preservation and cultural resources management consultant, providing archaeology, history, architectural history, preservation planning, and public interpretation resources as well as cemetery, geophysical and subsistence studies. To learn more, visit our website at www.newsouthassoc.com or contact Kristen Puckett. Share on Facebook or Twitter.
Preservation in Pink 