::FEATURE ARTICLES::

Exploring Albuquerque's Bungalows

By David Kammer

One of the best ways to appreciate Albuquerque’s historic neighborhoods is to walk them. A stroll along their tree-lined streets offers not only exercise but also an opportunity to read the built environment and to envision these early suburbs as they began to envelop the core of the railroad town founded in 1880. Whether you choose to explore the older neighborhoods west and north of downtown, those lining the sandhills rising to the East Mesa, or those atop the mesa around the University of New Mexico, architectural delights await you. Although the residential building styles of each neighborhood vary—a reminder of changing popular tastes during each district’s development—the housing design common to all is the Craftsman, or bungalow, style.

Here in New Mexico the two terms are often used interchangeably. Some prefer the term “bungalow,” respecting its etymological roots in India, where European colonialists encountered a vernacular house called a bungale, a one-story structure with an overhanging pitched roof and a large porch or verandah. British officials soon adapted this housing type, valuing its roofline and the wide overhangs that offered respite from the hot climate and seasonal rains they encountered at many of their overseas posts. Set within landscaped grounds evocative of English cottage gardens, the bungalow came to represent an ideal rural setting in which its dwellers harmoniously existed with nature.

Others prefer the term “Craftsman style,” derived from the influential Craftsman magazine published between 1901 and 1916. Not only did its publisher, Gustav Stickley, promote the use of hand-crafted furniture associated with the American Arts and Crafts movement as a means to renounce the mass production of the industrial age, he also advocated architectural plans and designs supportive of a lifestyle more closely linked with nature. The bungalow’s typical features of natural building materials such as wood and stone, generous windows, and multiple porches brought together outdoor and indoor living so essential to Stickley’s ideals.

California’s most ambitious examples of the Craftsman style, typified by residences designed by architects Charles and Henry Greene, came to represent the architectural style. More widespread, however, were houses built from plans offered in magazines and catalogues, many then adapted by individual builders. In that era when homeownership became available to more Americans than ever before, these more modest, affordable versions of the bungalow came to represent Everyman’s ideal home. Set in newly platted tracts accessible by electric trolleys and, in time, the private automobile, and surrounded by small lawns and gardens, the bungalow offered a slice of country life on a suburban plot.

Although none of Albuquerque’s bungalows approach the scale and ornate detailing of California’s most celebrated Craftsman homes, as a group they comprise the city’s most widespread residential housing type constructed between 1900 and 1930. These decades of popularity coincided with the Southwest’s health-seeker era, when the arrival of thousands of consumptives seeking relief from tuberculosis accounted for much of Albuquerque’s growth. Most of these newcomers followed a regimen prescribed by doctors at the city’s many sanatoria. An essential component was maximum exposure by day to the ever-present sun and, by night, sleeping outdoors in the dry, healing climate.

Like what you see? Subscribe here.

Photo © Kirk Gittings

Dark veneer wood trim frames the dining room entry and casement windows of this Albuquerque bungalow. Built-in furniture and lighting fixtures are typical detailing of many Craftsman-inspired interiors.