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Ultimate bungalow

Style of house

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ7880281 ↗
Source-derived summary

An ultimate bungalow is a large and detailed American Craftsman-style home, based on the bungalow form.

Overview

The ultimate bungalow style is associated with such California architects as Greene and Greene, Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan. Some of the hallmarks of Greene and Greene's ultimate bungalows include the use of tropical woods such as mahogany, ebony and teak, and use of inlays of wood, metal and mother-of-pearl.

As in their other major projects, Charles and Henry Greene—and to a lesser extent Bernard Maybeck and a few other Craftsman-era architects who built such homes—sometimes designed the majority of furniture, textiles, fixtures and other interior details of these homes specifically for their location both in the house and in the larger landscape.

The term "ultimate bungalow" was popularized by its use as a chapter title in the 1977 book Greene & Greene, Architecture as a Fine Art by Randell Makinson. The houses discussed in the chapter were the Greenes' Robert Blacker, David Gamble, Charles Pratt, Freeman Ford, William Thorsen, Earle C. Anthony, Dr. Crow, Willam Spinks, and William Lawless residences.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ultimate bungalow” as style of house. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ultimate, bungalow and Style.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1977—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Ultimate, bungalow and Style providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ultimate bungalow”, the useful work is to connect “style of house” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7880281. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1977.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Ultimate bungalow primary sources, Ultimate bungalow archive and Ultimate research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ultimate bungalow” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.