This is where my family has lived since we moved from California.
The previous owner called this house a ‘California bungalow’ perhaps to make us feel at home. It is similar to several other houses in the same street, and many modest-sized suburban houses of its period around Adelaide.

None of these houses much resemble the bungalows in California that I had known. These had been either Spanish mission style (as seen in Mullholland Drive) or kind of folksy with a shingle roof and redwood planks, nestled in trees. Many were kind of repro, as was much Californian housing actually built in the 1960s, but looking turn of the century in style. One that I rented for a while could not have been as old as it made out, being placed smack over the San Andreas Fault: underneath it one could see that the tortured foundations had been freshly cemented up. Of course California was relatively sparsely populated in the early 20th century, so much so that in the 60’s one hardly ever met a native born Californian. No doubt their original bungalows were there to be seen by the discerning eye, scattered thinly amongst contemporary condominiums and mansions.

Perhaps the template for our house had been the genuine 1920’s Californian bungalow described by Robert Winter. This had exposed rafters, deep eaves and duplicated wide gables with a flattened roof-line, said to reveal a Japanese influence (copied from a 1900 Frank Lloyd Wright design and differing from the Swiss chalet effect of more acutely angled roofing). But particularly there were two sturdy square-faced pillars placed at each end of the veranda. According to legend, an imposing 19^th century California building had its portico held aloft by two massive redwood trunks, starting the trend. At any rate, it is this feature which sets the California bungalow apart from all competitors. Such bungalows were popular in Southern California from the turn of the century until about 1920, when the design was largely superseded by less homey looking housing.

In Australia after Federation, the Californian bungalow style was adopted by Australian architects already keen on all things American. Built first in New South Wales, the style rapidly dispersed and remained popular, particularly with project housing developers until the end of the 1920’s.

So the previous owner had been right after all. Our house is a California bungalow.

According to Anthony King, whose book on the bungalow is replete with fascinating detail, neither the Californian nor Australian bungalow much resembles the genuine thing from Bengal: the Bengalese banggolo has a distinctive roof like an upturned boat, and one size fitted all. (One just built another as the family extended). They had been built just so for centuries, out of readily accessible material.

When the British came, they appropriated the design for their own little jungle hideaways, as well as for larger scale buildings accommodating district magistrates and the like, with roofs like a capsized Titanic. Shortly thereafter (in the 19^th century), ‘away from it all’ shacks for the gentry began to dot the English seaside and prosperous parts of the colonies. Some lovely designs have evolved, such as the Queensland tropical bungalow. However, in England, the bungalow idea trickled down to the middle-classes and became synonymous with tackiness of construction and deplorable behaviour. (Naturally, the working-class were confined to narrow terrace housing close to factories).

King points out that Australian cities remained small up to the 1880’s with predominantly narrow-frontage terraced housing, admixed with bluestone villas in Adelaide. By the 1850’s, some scattered ‘Georgian’ cottages were to be found, however the suburbs were a 20^th century phenomenon. Crucially for the development of our Australian suburbs, Britain accumulated substantial economic surpluses during boom times, and by 1914, some 4.5 billion pounds of this capital had already been reinvested overseas. Encouraged by the building of rail, trams and autobus transport, early 20^th century Federation style bungalows began appearing at the periphery of cities. During the First World War while building abated, the British idea of Garden Cities took hold of the minds of Australian regulators and town planners. Here was a means of fostering the egalitarian Australian ideology. It also ensured that new development improved land values since zoning disallowed cheap owner-built haphazard housing. In fact, Garden Suburbs suited all interests and became a splendid device to sell property.

Eager Australian developers were inspired by success of the Southern Californian model (because of the bungalow’s sales appeal despite cheap construction), and suburban sprawl took off in earnest in Australia after the First World War. Inexpensive housing was sold to all who could afford the modest repayments of under ¼ the average annual income: British capital, lent in amounts around 750 pounds, was repaid over 26 years with interest (ensuring the capital would double each quarter century). Indeed, private property appealed to the British immigrant to Australia: something for people on-the-move both physically and economically. Land became seen as a good investment, a source of wealth and security based on rising plot values. The Californian bungalow fulfilled the dream of self-reliance for the family man. Blending with its natural surroundings in the sun splashed bush, great for the family to sleep out and gaze at the Southern Cross, the bungalow provided privacy, excellent plumbing and much respectability. Why, the appointments were so modern that madame would scarcely notice that she was servantless. And, as the prospective purchaser would have noticed in Hollywood’s moving pictures, there was room to garage an automobile. All of which hype proved an irresistible lure for the common man.

The California bungalow design is revived from time to time, but has been largely superseded by Tuscan toilets and the like (though mossy rocks around the house are still essential in the outer suburbs). It is somewhat unfortunate that though the new styles of suburban house may look more imposing on the outside and have more rooms within, today’s rooms are noticeably smaller (apart from the garage) and have lower ceilings than the 1927 house. And this meaner contemporary design for a home is harder to buy in 26 years for ¼ the average annual wage.

The Australian suburban bungalow, occupied by what passes for a family these days, seems to have gelled out of a complex mixture of political, economic and cultural forces. Some of the seeds were sown while Australia was still a British colony, long before town planners, architects and builders conspired together to build large scale suburbs in the 1920’s.

Let land be granted with a clause that will ever prevent more than one house being built on the allotment which will be of 60 feet in front
 and 150 feet in depth.        Governor Arthur Phillips  ~1788

I think that so-called multifactorial explanations of complex historical trends are not entirely satisfactory, nor are conspiracy theories. The problem is that these find cause in what may well be coincidental and depend on an unhealthy bias in selection of quotes and other material. They do not exactly account for the prevalence of specific styles of housing, such as the stone fronted “California” bungalows in Adelaide.  Perhaps cultural anthropologists can give a better answer, because it seems that fashions and booms can settle into a culture, and become the way things are done.  My grandmother warned me about pulling funny faces because ‘the wind might change and I’d be stuck like that’.  Perhaps there are simple reasons why this is so. Ants build large and complex nests as a result of two things: (i) a simple set of rules governing their individual behaviour, requiring no local information about city plans or the like and (ii) a complex environment. Knowledge of simple factors governing human behaviour would be crucial to any proper explanation of how I come to live in the kind of house I do. Lacking this, we have just a mosaic of ‘telling’ details.

Neville Shute has described in his novels such as The Far Country how affordable house designs and city plans, detailing street names such as Acacia Avenue, were displayed at Australia House to tempt British migrants away from their gloomy predicament after WWII. A golden land of opportunity, far away from multi-family apartment blocks. And the dream lives on in Neighbours.

But the strange thing is, it is pretty much as advertised, an excellent product of British seed capital.
 

Bibliography: 

Butler, G. The Californian Bungalow in Australia. Origins, revival, source ideas for restoration.   Lothian, Port Melbourne 1992

King, A D. The bungalow The production of a global culture. Routledge & Kegan Paul London 1984

Winter, R. The California Bungalow Hennessey & Ingalls Los Angeles 1980.