The humble Chicago bungalow is more than a century old and still beloved

There’s a housing type that makes up one-third of Chicago’s inventory, and it’s been around for more than 100 years: the humble Chicago bungalow.

Across the country, the term “bungalow” often refers to a small, one-story house. These characteristics apply to the Chicago bungalow, but the Windy City’s variety brings its own Midwestern flair that harks back to the economic and design ethos of the 1910s-1930s when they were built.

Today, there remain 80,000 Chicago bungalows throughout the city, according to the Chicago Bungalow Association. These structures are made of brick with one and a half stories over a full basement, with wide overhang hipped roofs, lots of windows (commonly with a dormer window, too), and a porch with steps.

“People love bungalows because they have the character,” said Chicago-based agent Sarah Ware of Ware Realty Group. “It’s not like anything else, I would say.”

Former Mayor Richard M. Daley started the CBA 25 years ago to protect these structures from razing. Today, the group has amassed about 40,000 members.

Author and bungalow historian Anthony D. King said the bungalow’s history goes back to the 1600s in what is today India, where the form originated as a "bangla," meaning “of or belonging to Bengal.”

There, the simple structure began as a hut with a sloped, thatched roof and mud walls. Some form of the India-derived bungalow is found on every continent, noted King, each offering a distinct style indicative of the social, cultural and political environment.

Before the bungalow made its way to Chicago, it was popularized in California.

California’s version features wood frame structures in the Arts and Crafts style of architecture that emphasized craftsmanship over ornamentation from roughly 1880 until 1920, according to Carla Bruni, the CBA’s preservation and resiliency specialist, who holds a master’s degree in historic preservation. Many California bungalows were designed by architect brothers Greene and Greene.

“This is a style that then migrated over to Chicago,” said Bruni in an interview. “This was sort of a reaction to Victorian architecture, which was very fussy and detailed. … That was no longer popular, and it was a new era all about functionality, craftsmanship, and in response to the machine age. Bungalows really fit that profile nicely.”

Chicago bungalows, too, held on to a craftsmanship focus, built with wood in the beginning before shifting to the more well-known brick exterior.

This came out of necessity to stand resilient against harsh weather and new construction regulations in the wake of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, according to the CBA. Brick was also readily available in the area and affordable. Brick colors vary from red, brown, orange, yellow, or even patterned.

Lot sizes also contributed to the development of the Chicago bungalow’s unique look.

Developers divvied up parcels into lot sizes that would maximize economies of scale while creating a neighborhood feel, according to Michael Shafir, director of architecture at CoStar Group, the owner of Homes.com. They needed to be cost-effective for their intended buyers, an influx of immigrants coming to the city.

"These newer modern communities were fashionable, brand-new, stylistic architectural forms, but they were also smaller, more dense, and they created a type of neighborhood and community feel that was very distinct and quite needed at the time," said Shafir.

Chicago’s long and narrow 125-by-25-foot lots, in effect, slimmed down how big a Chicago bungalow could be. In California, bungalows were wider and larger because of the availability of land. They weren't created in response to a dramatic increase in immigration, either, like Chicago's were.

Greene and Greene, regarded as the pioneers of the California bungalow, also coined the “ultimate bungalow,” which were sprawling American Craftsman-type houses filled with intricate details, often mixing materials such as wood and stone.

"The California manifestation bungalow is not about mass production and prefabricated technologies, it's much different," said Shafir. "It's a little bit more bespoke and connected with nature."

Chicago bungalows sold for as little as $4,000, said Bruni, but larger options could reach into the teens. Many were sold and advertised through mailed flyers. One floor plan from the Home Builders Catalog, held in the collection of the Chicago History Museum, lays out a living room in the front of the home, two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a separate kitchen and dining room.

The prime reason for the bungalow explosion in Chicago between 1910 and 1930 was the uptick in immigration. During the height of construction, the city population increased by more than 1 million, according to the Chicago Architecture Center.

It's why these bungalows were built rapidly, densely, and for relatively affordable prices.

At the same time, concerns over urban housing conditions began to grow. Many workers lived in low-quality tenement buildings.

“There were no windows in a lot of [tenements]. There were horrific conditions,” said Bruni. “You have all these people flooding in, you have all these reforms at the same time, and bungalows really were this wonderful [thing].”

The city began annexing property further away from its more densely populated center to accommodate the rise in population, and extending the border created plenty of construction opportunities on empty farmland. This area is where Chicago bungalows bloomed, and it’s referred to as the Bungalow Belt.

The Bungalow Belt creates an arc around the city from neighborhoods as far north as North Mayfair and to the south in Chatham. 15 bungalow historic districts throughout the Bungalow Belt protect these structures from demolition.

Many liken the Chicago bungalow to a slice of the American Dream for middle-class families, though the wealthy bought some of the larger ones. For decades, they offered a yard and safe housing at an affordable price. Some say they still do. There are at least four on the market now in the region, starting at $399,000, that show the housing type's evolution.

The affordability was possible for several reasons, noted Bruni, one being the high volume.

Developers would purchase large swaths of land, often an entire street at a time. Their crews would build the same structure over and over again. The method created cost savings while requiring fewer workers because each knew the product well.

Oftentimes, projects wouldn’t need a foreman for this reason, said Bruni. Builders also left the basement and the half-floor attic of these homes unfinished — another cost-saving measure that provided families the option to grow as they needed.

“You look at census data and you find a 1,300-square-foot bungalow with 14 people in it from an Irish immigrant family that also had a boarder somehow. People were making it work however they needed to,” said Bruni.

Bungalows were attractive to higher earners too, such as doctors, who might have opted for a larger bungalow on a corner lot, also called a “bungaloid.”

The look of the Chicago bungalow is also considered Prairie Style, a prominent architectural movement in the Midwest that emerged around the same time as the bungalow boom. It was led by notable figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright.

Prairie Style includes low-hipped roofs, overhanging eaves, connection to nature, plenty of windows, and horizontal lines — much of what's seen in a Chicago bungalow. The style was an antithesis to the ornate, seen heavily in European architecture. Prairie Style became a true American architecture that buyers were drawn to, according to Shafir.

"The developers cared about [prairie style] because they were popular and they would sell. ... And when [Frank Lloyd Wright] conceived of these homes, the idea of mass producing individual small singular homes for a rising middle class was also being popularized at the same time," said Shafir.

As a decade passed from the first Chicago bungalows, architects and developers started getting creative in their design choices. Bungalows were similar, but not the same. Some used a specific color of brick, others might have changed the windows, or the roof might have sloped in different directions.

Part of what’s made bungalows so successful is the benefits of this sameness, but in the 1920s, there emerged an interest in a twinge of glamour. Architects started adding stained glass and different bay window configurations at this time.

“They seem ubiquitous but they’re totally not, they’re intentionally not because every developer knew you wanted yours to be a little different,” said Bruni.