It was called “phony,” a tool of gentrification, the “modern McMansion.” It was mocked, copied and left for dead.
But whatever you think about the modern farmhouse, there’s no doubt that it has become the defining look of the new American home.
The distinctive white siding, board and batten accents, clean gables and black-framed windows can be found in new construction homes from suburbs to cities. In 2017, these features were already identified as important trends at the Builder Design Awards. And as recently as early 2025, modern farmhouse plans were selling 36% better than other styles.
Its rise is often attributed to taste – driven by “Fixer Upper”, Chip and Joanna Gainesand an insatiable American appetite for nostalgia. But liking a style and implementing it everywhere are two different things.
“Material costs are a key factor when it comes to the type of stock of new homes on offer, particularly for smaller developers who do not have economies of scale when purchasing,” explains Joel Bernersenior economist at Realtor.com®.
And while some critics have derided the move toward cheaper construction as an erosion of American aesthetics, architectural historians say Gwendolyn Wright argues that tensions have defined architectural styles for more than a century.
“Builders have been looking for ways to save money since the late 19th century,” Wright writes. “Experiments with neoteric building materials and building systems aimed to reduce production costs.”
For a style to become the face of American housing, it must also survive the economics of construction. And these calculations have always left their mark on the appearance of houses.
Why modern farmhouses fit into the post-crash housing economy
Modern farmhouses emerged from an industry that had just learned the hard way how much architectural complexity can cost.
In the years before the 2008 crash, folding had become part of the visual language of the new American home: overhangs, masonry facades, and rooflines dotted with peaks and gables. Looking back on the deep recession of 2010, one architect joked that homeowners were somehow convinced they needed “ten gables” to keep up.
When the market collapsed, builders began removing these features. Trade reporting from this period documented an industry that was aggressively increasing the value of its homes.
While it used to be routine to add 500 square feet of stone to the exterior of a new home, builders cut the usage in half and used just 200 square feet—the recession had literally stripped the house of half the stone.
But the lack of expensive features created another problem. A house still had to have the almost mythical quality I don’t know what of residential real estate: attractiveness.
Enter a modern farmhouse.
Its identity could be focused on relatively few recognizable features—clear gables, light facades, vertical board and batten, dark windows, porches, and occasional metal accents—without restoring all of the structural complexity that the builders had just removed.
Even the homages to traditional timber construction could be reproduced using cheaper, industrialized materials – and builders seized the opportunity.
Fiber cement siding, which can mimic wood siding, rose from 7.5% of new single-family homes in 2003 to 21.7% in 2023, an increase of 14.2 percentage points in two decades. By 2025, it covered 22.6% of new homes started.
By the time “Fixer Upper” — the Gaineses’ original vehicle — premiered in 2013, it had already become a powerful national arbiter of home decorating tastes. HGTV itself later described the couple as its original “farmhouse sweethearts,” and scholars viewed the show’s “farmhouse chic” as central to the nostalgic vision of the home they built.
While popular culture taught buyers what they should want, the construction industry filtered that demand through what could actually be produced on a large scale.
The modern farmhouse landed at the intersection of both: a highly recognizable aesthetic that emerged at a time when builders had good reason to add visual interest without returning to the expensive structural excess they had just removed from the American home.
It was a compelling answer to this economic equation – but it was far from the first.
This is how the ranch conquered America
After World War II, the United States was estimated to be short 5 million homes in 1945. Returning veterans started families, suburbs expanded, and developers had to build housing faster than ever before.
The solution was to transform housing into an industrialized product.
The builders used precut lumber, plywood siding, precast concrete panels, and factory-made windows, doors, and fixtures. Gypsum wallboard (now better known as sheetrock) gradually replaced the far more labor-intensive process of applying wood lath and plaster.
Wartime engineers had even developed lightweight roof trusses that required about 45% less wood and cost about 35% less than traditional ceiling and roof frames.
The developers then combined these materials with a new way of organizing work Henry Ford as is well known, done for the automobile.
At Levittown on Long Island, construction was divided into specialized tasks that were carried out repeatedly from house to house. A 36-person team could start and finish a house in a single day.
One style proved particularly well suited to this new construction industry.
The ranch’s single-story, horizontal profile lent itself to mass production. Due to its simplicity, it could be built on a concrete slab or a simple raised foundation, reducing the need for highly skilled labor.
And at its peak in the 1950s, ranches accounted for an estimated nine out of every 10 new homes built in the United States.
But here too, efficiency alone cannot explain the meteoric rise of this style.
The ranch worked because the innovations that made home reconstruction quicker and cheaper matched a style that buyers actually wanted: informal living, an attached garage, large windows, a connection to nature, and a new vision of suburban family life.
What will today’s houses ultimately say about us?
The lessons of Leavittown and the post-World War II building boom are a stark reminder that houses have always reflected more than just architectural taste—they preserved the desires, fears, and economic opportunities of the people who built and bought them.
Architectural historian Barbara Miller Lane It turns out that developers paid so much attention to consumer preferences that one prominent construction family called buyers their “best architects.”
It’s an interesting idea to resist the criticism that tends to be based on popular living styles. While builders get to determine which designs can be produced profitably, the homes that proliferate are also, in a way, homebuyers’ reward.
Consider the McMansion.
sociologist Brian Miller found that the term ultimately represented much more than just a large or garishly designed house. It became “a symbol of more complex problems such as urban sprawl and overconsumption.”
Of course, in retrospect the association seems almost inevitable. The McMansion emerged when mass-produced materials made it easier to reproduce elaborate displays of luxury, while the same easy credit that would eventually lead to its collapse made it easier to finance that opulence.
The house became a testament to its economic viability, to what buyers wanted and ultimately got from it. And nearly 20 years later, the architecture has become synonymous with the era of conspicuous excess.
The modern farmhouse might, after all, tell us something equally recognizable about the period that followed: an era that emerged from a devastating real estate crash, drawn to nostalgia and authenticity, and increasingly adept at reproducing both through standardized construction and manufactured materials.
But just as these findings come to light, the math changes again.
“Builders are simplifying rooflines and floor plans to reduce construction waste, shrink lots, and add low-material-value features—drop zones, flex spaces, electric vehicle hookups—as well as porches and terraces that increase quality of life without adding much interior space or cost,” says Berner.
And as they do that, the modern farmhouse is falling out of favor. The style recorded a net popularity score of -31% in the American Institute of Architects’ latest design survey. Contemporary living styles and facades, meanwhile, achieved an increase of 41%.
The motivation is once again clearly visible.
Builders are under pressure to get more out of every construction dollar. In July, they reported that the materials needed to build the same home cost an average of 6.7% more than a year earlier. The increase was 9.1% for builders who built five or fewer homes, compared to just 1.8% for those who built at least 100 homes.
At the same time, the house itself is contracting. The average single-family home completed in 2025 was 2,142 square feet, with the size of new homes generally declining from the peak in the mid-2010s. Almost two-thirds of new single-family homes today are on less than a fifth of an acre, compared to 46% in 1999.
It’s too early to say that these constraints will produce everything that comes after the modern farmhouse, but some of the contours of the next American home are beginning to emerge.
What buyers consider beautiful within these constraints remains an open question. And what these decisions ultimately reveal about this economic moment may only become clear when we look back.
