I know someone who lived in this house (1959) the kitchen workspace was about 8x10

A slightly different house from Bowie

Two versions of ranch exterior:

Kitchen at front near garage.

The Framingham has an 8'6'' x 15 kitchen

The garrison colonial is one of the later houses, and I feel this was the period that they were starting (in general) to make houses look larger or more imposing than they were, instead of settling them into the landscape. This house is still not very large (being relatively shallow front to back).

Time to start looking at stuff.

Ne

This was also the era where they developed plans that could be ordered with distinctly different exteriors. The first house also came with a "modern" exterior, and I posted the two versions of the ranch: MCM and vaguely french country or colonial revival. During this time the more traditional exteriors seemed to be more popular, even though the plan was the same, and contemporary.

---
With regard to the garrison colonial, this is a Very old house style, originating/popular the Medieval and Tudor periods. You are right, the purpose was to give more living space on the upper story of town or village houses that may have only been 12-14 feet wide. The jetty as it is called also protected the lower story and entry from the weather. In London the jetties often projected on each story and on very narrow streets the front eaves on houses facing each other would almost touch. This made the streets darker, more dangerous, and probably contributed to the spread of the Great Fire of London (1666).

The first settlers here built what they were familiar with.

Interesting how we may not like something until we understand "why"--happens to me all the time :)

Here are some earlier examples of Levittown houses from one of the earliest Levittowns, on Long Island.

These are on a slab with early radiant heating. After some decades--50 years or so in a lot of cases, it seems, the staples used to secure the copper piping cause enough of a galvanic reaction to create multiple pinholes in the system causing catastrophic failure. The style pictured had a double fireplace between the kitchen and LR.

Charles Tekula Collection, the Levittown "Cape Cod"

The picture window is actually the rear facade and is stick built with a couple of awning units. This type of modernism does not seem to have been popular for long and it was supplanted by more "traditional" looking exteriors. The small size of the house was compensated for by the large amount of green space at the backs of these houses, which was intended to be used as a "commons". For city-dwellers who were used to conversing out windows, and sitting on stoops, the sidewalk or fire escapes, this communal space seemed natural, but as time went by there was more personalization and segmentation of the yards. It is a rarity to see a Levitt house that still looks like these. Most of them have been substantially altered.

Although I don't find the facade with the father standing in front of it particularly attractive (the first, turned-gable version is a bit better imo)--these houses have a particular integrity that is missing from most new housing, and of course this type of living environment seems to be long gone from our culture in most regions.

And this is the kitchen that would have been in a version of this house:

Note the stick-built picture window with ventilating units and the double fireplace.

Here is a GE integrated kitchen that appeared in other Levitt houses:

By the late 50s the kitchens started to get a little bigger, Notice the window, with curtains, over the range.

Looked like this as built:

And here is a grandmother-in-law in her kitchen in the very early 1960s. The kitchen occupied one diamond paned window in the front facade, the bath, the other. One large window near the garage was the dining area, the other larger window was a den or 4th bedroom.

Three generations lived in this house. A mother-in-law, the parents and a daughter.This was larger than the house they left in the city. Many of the neighbors had the same situation but with multiple children--one of the neighbors had 5 children. Our demands for space have certainly increased.

The larger houses in the first post are probably what we should be considering, and these would have been smallish kitchen + dining area adjacent, and contemporary inside with some kind of "traditional" or colonial revival exterior.

I got a little side tracked with the smaller Long Island houses which would have had the tiny BW kitchen or the GE integrated style kitchen I posted. (And these include laundry).

I think we could decide which type of house(s) above would be best for the thread and I May be able to post the floorplan just to give one an idea of what it started out as. Not that I expect floorplans but just so we know what we are working with.

In the mean time we can see what happens with the pink II thread and then move on with the 1960s tract house thread.

Of interest to me is the front doors shown which are not facing the front. Why did they do this? Is it more common in the cold areas of the country? Keeping the elements from dominating an entry? Plus they only have a "stoop". My house has this oddity and has been a pain to come up with welcoming walkway. Took me 3 years to be creative enough in figuring one out.

Love seeing these. Thanks for posting. I would love to see the original layouts too. May go searching.

Early on some of these houses had attached garages but you still had to go outside and then into the house. When house shopping I looked at two houses built in the mid-seventies where the garage was completely within the footprint of the house but there was Still no internal connecting door.

-----
Pink Levittown kitchen on eBay via RetroRenovation

The Garrison version added 70 square feet to a smaller version of this house, allowing an additional bedroom on the second floor. Today that would not be quite enough for an additional bath in many plans.

To me, that last house looks too traditional and colonial. You might even mistake it for a '20s house if you looked quickly, and you might miss the minimalism of ornament that marked this era.

I like your interior GIL shot. It shows how these houses were modest but comfortable, had fairly low ceilings compared to some earlier eras, but also maintained a bit of traditionalism and "pretty" about them. Everyone thinks the '60s was the era of MCM, but of course that term didn't even exist then, and most houses had modern elements but were very far from modern.

Remember that Levitt was one of the originators of the varied exterior. The floorplan would be nearly identical while the exterior was offered in multiple styles, and the house merely turned or even just "wrapped" with the exterior details.

The interiors would have looked like the ones I pictured.

The full pig snout where the garage sits in front of the house and is almost always a 2-car garage, and the front door is more than halfway back the lot and distinctly to the side is more of a post 1980s style. This is when they first returned to a very elaborate entry with separate roofline, large window, perhaps double height, because the entry was so secondary to the large garage that it had to be clearly identified.

Sorry, if I seem impatient (LOL) but I'm hoping to get to French kitchens, before the end of the month! :)

I do want to Emphasize Again: the Floor Plans of these development houses were Identical for as many as Five Exterior Appearances. So, in the Northeast the typical Exterior may be more likely to be "Cape Cod" or "Colonial Revival", it's likely the same house as your midwestern/western "Ranch" or "Spanish Revival".

Levittown Country Clubbers

Levittown Pennsylvanian

Levittown Jubilee

Levittowner

Levittown Rancher

Been dying to post it, but didn't want to taint the DAT thread itself.

Which, I agree, we should kind of get started on.

In their original state, they brought the outside in with large windows facing back and sometimes side yards. Some also had atrium spaces. For privacy, they had no windows or only high windows for ventilation on the front.

They often have pretty nice sized kitchens. They often used brick, stone and wood for an organic modern rather than a shiny lacquered or metal version of modern.

We stayed away from the MCM Modern house with the strong identities, such as the Eichlers, because they are rare in many areas:

Almost all the pure modernist houses in my area are custom built or at at least built for a particular client.

They also provide a clear direction for any new work to go, while a tract house may have the open plan of an Eichler et al, tricked out in traditional detailing.