Why Are Porches So Alluring? (part III)
Finding Contentment on the Bungalow Porch
This letter is part of a three-part series exploring the timeless beauty and meaning of the American front porch. That in-between space where home meets the world. It’s a story of architecture, culture, and the art of living well. And today, we’re settling into the part of the story where porch, house, and landscape finally come together - a lesson in balance, craft, and contentment.
✨Welcome to the porch, dear reader.
You’re here! I’m so glad you stopped by. Pull up a chair…
And, in case you missed it last week, Part II is here The Lost Art of Porchology, and Part I is here Remembering How I First Fell in Love.
Today, we’re settling into the part of the story where porch, house, and landscape finally come together - a lesson in balance, craft, and contentment.
“To bring about harmony between the house and its surroundings, to get as close as possible to nature.” The Radford Architectural Company, 1908
This idea. I absolutely love it.
Because really, that’s the heart of it, isn’t it?
The bungalow, and especially its porch, was never meant to be grand or showy. It was built for comfort and proportion, for beauty that whispers instead of shouts.
Here at Juniper Hill Cottage, in the high-country of Northern Arizona, I think about that a lot.
The scent of the old junipers drifts through the screens while the afternoon light slides across the floorboards, and I can feel that same sense of balance those early designers were after.
Nature for you might be different. It might be a dense pine forest, a sweep of high-desert sky, or a small garden humming with bees.
Whatever form your surroundings takes, the porch becomes the gracious bridge between two worlds. The solid shelter we create. And the living landscape that surrounds us.
Gustav Stickley wrote in 1908 that in nearly all of us is “a deep, distinctive longing to possess a little corner of that Eden from which our modern and materialistic way of living has made us exiles.”
And honestly, a hundred-twenty years later, that longing feels more modern than ever.
The front porch might just be our small corner of Eden - a humble, handmade reminder that beauty doesn’t come from excess, but from relationship: between structure and sunlight, human craft and the natural world.
For those of us drawn to smaller, simpler, and more beautiful living, the bungalow porch offers a kind of blueprint.
In many corners of this country, there are forgotten cottages and bungalows tucked away in historic downtown neighborhoods. That’s where we have found our little corner of paradise, here in the mountains of Northern Arizona.
We don’t need to start over (build new homes) or shrink our lives to extremes. We can simply reclaim what already exists - renovate, restore, re-love. It’s as much about stewardship as design.
Maybe that’s where the real magic begins - in choosing to care for what already exists, and letting those small acts of stewardship draw us closer to the places we call home, and those that came before us.
I think that’s where contentment arrives - in realizing that our homes aren’t separate from the world or our community, but rooted deeply within it.
And maybe that’s why, even after all these years, I never tire of ending the day out on our own porch - with the sun settling behind the mountain peaks, and always a small moment of gratitude for the place we get to call home.
And that’s a wrap. For this series at least.
It’s probably fair to say you’ll hear me go on about porches, cottages, and smaller homes for as long as you’ll let me.
I’m so honored you joined me for this three-part ramble. And if you missed Parts I or II, you’ll find both linked at the top of this letter.
Be sure to keep an eye on your Substack Notes feed, too. I’m sharing an ongoing series called Porches & Cottages of Prescott, with plenty of peeks at our own bungalow and front porch along the way.
With contentment & possibility,
PS: Let’s chat:
Thanks for keeping me company on the porch these past few Fridays. I’d love to hear what you’ll take from the series. Or what kind of porch you’d build if you stumbled upon your own forgotten cottage.
Come say hello in the 💬 comments 👇