About ranchrevival.com
Ranch Revival is published by The Boomerville Press out of beautiful Athens, Georgia, home to the University of Georgia and a growing arts, music and business-friendly community of about 100,000 located an hour east of Atlanta. As the birthplace of R.E.M. and the B-52s, the city rocks, yet it's also made multiple national listings as one of the best places in the US to retire. RollingStone Magazine listed Athens as the "#1 College Music Scene" in 2003; it made Fortune Magazine's 2006 "Where to Retire in Style" list, and Kiplinger's "One of Seven Cool Cities (2005)." With a growing number of art studios and the Georgia Museum of Art, it's also made AmericanStyle Magazine's listing,"Top 25 Arts Destinations" several years running. Add to that a revitalized downtown, a lovely historic district, miles of greenspace, and great shopping and dining. Oh, and did we mention the top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs? Yet, with all of this, traffic is still reasonable and living space still affordable.
Publisher Jen Wolf moved to Athens in early 2006, from an historic waterfront community on Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island to a cozy development of 1970s era brick ranch style homes in the Northeast Georgia woods. Having been raised south of the Mason-Dixon line, the move back to the South wasn't as much of a culture shock as you might think. But Wolf admits the move into the ranch house took some adjustment. "After living in a Cape Cod style cottage home for 15 years," Wolf said, "my first thought was, 'Well, the roominess is nice, and the woods here are beautiful, but what do I do with this box?'"
The house wasn't in bad shape - the previous owners had upgraded the mechanicals and all of the appliances - but the interiors lacked personality. As she walked from room to room with boxes still unpacked, this veteran of several previous remodels was already beginning to visualize how she might make the most of this new space. But she knew she needed to exercise care - she didn't want to turn the ranch into something it wasn't, say, another Cape Cod style home. Whatever changes she made would have to honor the roots of the ranch style.
Looking for inspiration and ideas, Wolf spent hours driving through the different communities of Athens, "being the total voyeur," she said. "It was fun to see what different homeowners were doing with individual houses. There were so many ranch style homes being treated, stylistically, in so many different ways." As she became better acquainted with her new community, she realized that the university draws people to the city from all over the country, "so while there are a lot of ranch houses, there doesn't seem to be one dominant ranch style - people are bringing their stylistic preferences with them, so they may settle into a ranch, but they're doing very different things with them."
"You can see some people doing the traditional Southern plantation window shutters, for example," while others, she said, "probably younger people, I would guess, are going for a more 'retro' look. A 1950s kind of thing, down to the retro furniture and the VW bus parked in the carport. I've even seen whimsical metal sculptures sticking out of gorgeous formal landscaping - and it works! I never know what to expect. The diversity is exciting."
Wolf spent a lot of time cruising the Web as well, and was delighted to discover she was not alone. From the number of excellent blogs out there, as well as articles that turn up on queries of existing home improvement and decorating sites, it's clear there's something of a revival going on of interest in the humble ranch style. For the editor and publisher, the idea of creating a website devoted to the practical and creative concerns of homeowners like herself seemed a natural progression of her renewed interest in the style. The house in Athens, she says, is still pretty much as it was when she moved in, but the new website grows daily, thanks to the contributions of visitors who continue to stop by and take the time to share their stories, their photos, and a little bit of inspiration.
We'd love to hear from you!
- Have you (or has your firm) completed a remodeling project (inside or out)?
- Do you have before & after project photos?
- Want to share "lessons learned" from a project you've done?
See our submission guidelines for more information.