Among the housing forms Southern California invented, the bungalow court is the one that best deserves a second life. The idea is simple: several small detached cottages arranged along a shared garden walk instead of stacked into a single building, each with its own front door, each looking onto planting rather than a corridor. It appeared in this region early in the last century, spread widely, and then largely stopped being built as zoning and the automobile reorganized the way towns grew. Claremont still has examples, and the form suits this town so precisely that it is worth understanding as more than a curiosity. This article covers what a bungalow court is, why the form works here, and what buying, owning, or borrowing the idea actually involves. It deepens the architecture guide.
What a bungalow court is, and why the form appeared
THE DEFINING GEOMETRY is a shared open space with dwellings around it. In the classic arrangement, small one-story cottages face each other across a landscaped walkway running back from the street, with a common garden down the middle and parking, when it exists, pushed to the rear. Nobody enters through a shared lobby; nobody shares a stair; every unit has its own door, its own bit of outdoor space, and daylight on more than one side. THE PROBLEM IT SOLVED was the one every desirable town eventually faces: how to house more households on less land without giving up the qualities that made the land desirable. An apartment block achieves the density and loses the ground-floor front door. A subdivision of detached houses keeps the front door and loses the density. The court splits the difference — it is DENSER THAN SINGLE-FAMILY AND GENTLER THAN A BLOCK, which is exactly the gap that planners now describe as the missing middle. THE ERA that produced it, roughly the 1910s and 1920s, was also a walking era: courts were built close to streetcar lines, downtowns, and institutions, on the assumption that residents would step out and walk somewhere. That assumption is embedded in the form, which is why courts feel right in walkable places and awkward when they are stranded. The cottages themselves usually spoke the architectural language of their moment — Craftsman detailing, Spanish and Mediterranean revival, or the plainer minimal traditional that followed — so a court is often a small anthology of the same vocabulary the streetscape guide teaches on the surrounding blocks.
Why the form fits this town
Claremont happens to supply nearly every condition the bungalow court needs. IT IS WALKABLE at the scale that matters, with a downtown, a depot, and institutions clustered tightly enough that a household without a second car is a reasonable proposition rather than a hardship. IT HAS THE CANOPY, which is the court's other half — a central garden walk shaded by mature trees is a genuinely lovely place, and this is a town that has spent a century growing exactly that. IT HAS THE HOUSEHOLDS: a college town runs on one and two-person households — early-career professionals, visiting and junior faculty, graduate students, single owners, and the downsizers who want to stay in town without maintaining a yard — and the court's small, self-contained, low-maintenance units serve all of them better than either of the alternatives. AND IT MATCHES THE TOWN'S SELF-IMAGE, which is the part that is easy to underrate. Claremont's character rests on small scale, greenery, and pedestrian life; the court is one of the very few ways to add households without contradicting any of the three. That is why the form keeps reappearing in conversations about housing here, and why its modern descendants — cottage clusters, small-lot infill, and the accessory dwellings covered in the ADU guide — draw on the same instinct: a separate front door, a bit of private outdoor space, and a shared garden doing the work a corridor would otherwise do badly. The architecture pillar makes the wider argument about how this town's fabric holds together.
Buying, owning, or borrowing the idea
START WITH THE OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE, because it changes everything. A court may be held by a single owner as an income property, mapped into condominium units and sold individually, or occasionally organized some other way — and the structure determines your financing, your governance, your maintenance obligations, and your exit. If the units are condominium interests, read the governing documents with the same seriousness you would bring to any association: what is common area, who maintains the roofs and the landscape, how reserves are handled, and what the rules say about rentals and alterations. IF YOU ARE BUYING THE WHOLE COURT, you are buying a small multi-unit property with the operational realities that implies, and the investors guide is the better starting point than any single-family playbook. EXPECT VALUATION FRICTION EITHER WAY. These are unusual properties in a town that does not trade many of them, so the comparable sales an appraiser needs may be thin on the ground — the same difficulty the comps guide describes, amplified by a rarer property type. Build extra time into the appraisal step and expect the number to require more explanation than usual. THE PHYSICAL DUE DILIGENCE runs to shared systems: how is the water supplied and metered, where do the sewer laterals run, how is the site drained, who owns the trees, and what condition are the original small-cottage systems in after a century. THE REGULATORY LAYER matters just as much — permitted unit count, legal nonconforming status, parking, and any historic designation all belong on the verify-with-the-city list before you write an offer, not after. AND IF YOU ARE BORROWING THE IDEA rather than buying one, the lesson transfers cleanly to any Claremont lot: orient the second dwelling toward a shared garden rather than a driveway, give it its own door and its own outdoor space, and let planting rather than fencing do the separating. This is general information; the city's current requirements, the governing documents, and qualified counsel govern.
Anthony Grynchal has been licensed in California since November 2009, and the bungalow courts remain the properties buyers describe most vividly afterward — a garden walk with front doors on it is not a floor plan people forget.
Frequently asked questions
What is a bungalow court?
Several small detached cottages arranged along a shared landscaped walkway rather than stacked into one building. Each unit has its own front door, its own bit of outdoor space, and daylight on more than one side, with parking pushed to the rear. The shared garden does the work a corridor would otherwise do badly.
Why does the bungalow court suit Claremont?
The town supplies every condition the form needs: a walkable downtown and depot, a mature tree canopy that makes a central garden walk genuinely pleasant, and a population of one and two-person households — early-career professionals, junior faculty, graduate students, and downsizers — that small self-contained units serve well.
What should I check before buying into a bungalow court?
First the ownership structure, since a single-owner income property and a condominium-mapped court behave completely differently for financing and governance. Then shared systems: water metering, sewer laterals, site drainage, tree ownership, and the condition of century-old cottage systems. Then permitted unit count, parking, and any historic designation with the city.
Are bungalow courts hard to appraise?
They can be. Comparable sales are already thin in a low-turnover town, and a rare property type amplifies the problem, so an appraiser may have limited local evidence to work from. Build extra time into the appraisal step and expect the resulting number to require more explanation than a conventional single-family sale would.
