Cliff May (1903–1989) was a building designer (he was not licensed as an architect until the last year of his life) practicing in California best known and remembered for developing the suburban Post-war "dream home" (California Ranch House), and the Mid-century Modern.
The Ranch-style house
May built Monterey-style furniture as a young man. As a residential/building designer, May designed projects throughout Southern California, including the regions around San Diego, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara, California. He is credited with creating the pitched-roof, low-slung California Ranch-style house in 1932. He had very little training as an architect, and never had the need to formally register as a licensed architect.
During his career, May designed numerous commercial buildings, over a thousand custom residences, and from model house prototypes more than eighteen thousand tract houses had his imprint. May synthesized Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with abstracted California adobe ranchos and Modern architecture. Robert Mondavi chose May to design his winery in which he incorporated features found in construction of California Missions.
In 1932, May's first house sold for $9,500. His work drew attention and the second home he built was featured in Architectural Digest in 1934. He continued to build 50 additional houses in San Diego before moving to Los Angeles in 1935. Many of his 1,000+ houses were built in Southern California, however some were built as far away as Switzerland, Australia and Ireland. During the 1940s and 50s, his work was featured in many publications including Architectural Forum, American Home, California arts and Architecture, Architectural Digest, House Beautiful, Sunset Magazine, Modernism Magazine, Southern California Quarterly, among others.
During the 1950s, May, along with colleague Chris Choate, designed prefabricated tract ranch homes which they sold to builders across the US. Many of these prefab tracts like Rancho Estates in Long Beach were popular and resulted in many homes in the tracts being built and sold. Some, particularity those outside of California, were unprofitable and only resulted in the model homes being built. The partnership between May and Choate ended in 1956 with May's departure.
May said of his architecture, "The ranch house was everything a California house should be -it had cross-ventilation, the floor was level with the ground, and with its courtyard and the exterior corridor, it was about sunshine and informal outdoor living."
The HGTV television show Flip or Flop featured remodels of two Cliff May homes.
Projects
Selected works include: