The bungalow (from Hindi baṅglā, “of Bengal”) began as a light, low, airy dwelling for seventeenth-century European traders and arrived in America through California in the 1870s. In the 1890s, the Colonial Bungalow was the first bungaloid type recognized by contemporaries. The next type, the hugely popular California Bungalow—with its shady eaves; indoor-outdoor spaces, and simple, substantial interiors—appeared in the 1900s, spreading across the United States to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

“California Bungalow” was the almost universal term during the form’s popularity through the 1920s. Inexplicably, in the 1980s and ’90s, it was rebranded by preservationist as the “Craftsman Bungalow,” obscuring its important regional origin and also that it was never focused on craftsmanship. Thus, when the National Register’s guide to applying the criteria for evaluation gives an example of a building being eligible for listing “that is a classic expression of the design theories of the Craftsman Style, such as carefully detailed handwork,” it’s a red herring. California Bungalow decorative details—rustic as they appeared—were mass-manufactured, just as generations of 19th-century detail before them.

(Notably, the earliest use of bungaloid I’ve found is in a 1908 Omaha World-Herald headline, “Bungaloid Fever Is Now Epidemic,” referring to the invasion of bungalows from California: “Most Californians are people of substantial but moderate means and of informal tastes, who want an attractive but inexpensive residence and are not quite sure they intend to live in their present abiding place for more than a few years.”)