Bay City's Architectural Treasures Highlight American Bungalow Magazine
Dale Wolicki, Todd Dore, Put National Spotlight on Cottage-Style Ready-Cuts
July 26, 2003
By: Dave Rogers
American Bungalow Magazine contains wealth of nostalgia of urban idealism as well as advice for new wanna-be bungalow homeowners.
We drive past them every day, paying little attention.
Perhaps we visit their owners, but are not aware of them.
They are part of the scenery, little blips on the landscape.
But they are much more significant that we realize. They are the subject of an entire magazine.
"They" are bungalows. WHAT? BUNGALOWS!
Please define that.
Webster's says "a small, one-storied house or cottage."
Bay City is full of them, bungalows that is, many produced by the several so-called "ready-cut" home companies which operated here from the early 1900s until the 1960s.
Just published is the Summer 2003 issue of, believe it or not, American Bungalow magazine, a slick 144 page quarterly coming out of Sierra Madre, California.
This publication is a treasure for the brand of urban sophisticates and metropolitan mavens who favor traditional mid-American Cleaver-style towns with tree-lined streets fronting endless rows of single-family cottages.
Bay City is that kind of town and we wouldn't have it any other way. And, by the way, Bay City, a center of innovation in several other technological areas also, may aptly be considered the wellspring of mainstream homebuilding nationally because of firms like Aladdin, Lewis-Liberty and Sterling.
Our guru of architectural technology, Dale Wolicki, has teamed with a homeowner, Todd Dore, to document Bay City's contribution to the "Leave It To Beaver" lifestyle of the nation. Their article, replete with photos from old catalogs and the streets of Bay City, is alliteratively entitled "Aladdin Homes: Comfortable, Convenient and Cozy." The subtitle is "Bay City, Mich., is a treasure of kit-built homes."
And that it is, for certain.The world will soon beat a path to our doors to see our architectural treasures if Mr. Wolicki has anything to say about it. His article documents Bay City's part in the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900s. With help from Todd and Ann Dore and well-known local photographer Wes Stafford, Wolicki documents a previously-little known fact that the only Rossley home featured in the 1916 Aladdin catalog is located on the corner of Johnson and Sixth streets in Bay City. It is owned by the Dores, arts and crafts collectors, who have restored the home and filled it with Stickley furniture and period collectibles.