December 2019

Clifford “Cliff” May was touted in the New York Times in the mid-1980s as “the man behind the ranch house.” May, who grew up in San Diego, made furniture in his 20s and never got a formal degree in architecture, built what historians recognize at the first ranch-style house in 1931. ''I rebelled against the boxy houses being built then,'' said May. ''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…