Ranches: Home on the Range in California

A California architect showcases 19 picturesque ranch homes in his handsome hardcover tome.

“I am in sympathy with ranchers who try to hold on to something to which they and their ancestors were devoted and took for granted. I admire their stubbornness against the odds.” –Marc Appleton from the Introduction

The lure of the West has been strong in American history, representing the promise of beautiful, wild landscapes, broad vistas, clean air and bright skies. Arising from the tradition of the Mexican land-grant ranchos and the spread of Spanish Catholic missions, the ranches of California have a long and multifaceted history. Ranches: Home on the Range in California offers a look at 19 ranches that showcase an expression of a lifestyle steeped in self-sufficiency, love of the land and unpretentious appeal.

Located in dramatic landscapes of rolling hills, upon the sides of mountains, or in vast plains bordered by snow- capped mountains, the featured homes represent classic archetypal types—from the Spanish-style hacienda form of historic Rancho Camulos, with its open porch and broad eaves, to the New England clapboard traditional, as seen in Jack London’s Beauty Ranch. Beautifully photographed, the book is a tribute to a fading way of life, but it is also a celebration of an ideal, vernacular historic architecture and the romance of the West. Its expansive landscapes offer the reader an intense visual experience of the California West’s vast, open spaces and beauty.

Author Marc Appleton is a California architect and author and principal of Appleton Partners LLP-Architects. Melba Levick is a widely published and exhibited photographer who has lived and worked in Paris, Venice, California, Barcelona and Formentera, Spain.

You can find the book at www.rizzoliusa.com.

© Ranches: Home on the Range in California by Marc Appleton, Rizzoli New York, 2016. Images from Ranches: Home on the Range in California © Melba Levick. Neither text nor images may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.