Backyards connect to all different kinds of houses. My childhood was spent in what we called a "double," twin dwellings with a common roof. Now we live in a "ranch house" built in the '40s. This rambling one-story floor plan with lots of windows was innovative in its heyday.

While the mix of houses in Broad Ripple is interestingly diverse, I tend to believe it is the bungalow, with its many variations, that gives the area its charm and style. Although we have come to regard bungalows as an all-American type of house, they actually originated in India - called bangala. British colonists saw the appeal of these thatched-roof, one-story houses, bringing the architecture to their homeland before William Gibbons Preston designed America's first bungalow in 1879.

Bungalow construction flourished across this country in the first half of the 20th century. Broad Ripple was one of the communities where the dream of owning a home could be realized for as little as $900. The bungalow embodied a need and a desire for a free-standing, single-family home situated in a garden setting and reminiscent of a countryside retreat. Walking the streets of the village these days, you can see many examples of art and crafts bungalows. Craftsman-style bungalows usually have a low-pitched roof, wide eaves with exposed roof rafters, decorative braces, square porch columns, and one or one-and-a-half stories. The interiors have fireplaces and built-in cabinets, shelves, and benches. Structural simplicity, efficient use of space, and understated style are hallmarks of bungalows.

Today, bungalows confirm the adage "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." Humble though they may be, who among us is not amazed by the prices they are fetching? How they have appreciated in value, and how their walls hold stories of generations of Broad Ripple residents.