There’s a local neighborhood that has the power to transport you back to the 1950s. Hidden off Grant Road in the park-filled city of Crestwood, between Old Route 66 and Interstate 44, the Ridgewood subdivision contains dozens of ranch houses all designed by the same talented St. Louis architect, adding to its intriguing mid-century lore.
The architect in question is Ralph Fournier, who, alongside developer Burton Duenke, built Ridgewood’s collection of one-story homes, each with a similar footprint and layout, between 1951 and 1953. The shared low-slope roofs and geometric front windows lining each street can make you feel as if you’ve stepped inside a time capsule.
With the Great Depression and World War II behind them, American families wanted to settle down in affordable family homes. People had more money to spend, and developers recognized this. Ranch-style housing was a sign of the times, according to Architectural Digest: It met demands for spaciousness with its open-floor plans; for a connection to the natural world with its patios and broad windows; and for the idea, generally, of accessible luxury. It evoked the American Dream.
“Mid-century is an interesting term,” Mary Reid Brunstrom, Ph.D., said in a 2015 symposium presented in part by WashU. “It links architecture in the United States to the growth and change resulting from post-War power and prosperity – even as the geopolitics of the Cold War cast a haze of uncertainty over the period. Like everything else at mid-century, architecture was shaped by these conditions.”…