Orrin Thompson

To keep his prices down, he saved on building costs in a number of ways: by taking ideas from the assembly line, by creating great quantities of houses, by building them in proximity to each other, and by using the same plans over and over. In the 1950s these newly built homes were priced around $12,000. Also, Thompson was able to build on inexpensive land away from the city, because the automobile and the public streets and highways had come of age, which gave homeowners greater mobility and the ability to commute.

The 1950s style of suburban real-estate development is mocked by Pete Seeger in the 1962 song “Little Boxes”, and it is criticized for contributing to urban sprawl, a phenomenon which results in diminished woods and prairie.

Orrin Thompson (August 26, 1913 – March 7, 1995) was one of the largest real-estate developers in the United States. In the 1950s, a time when the post World War II population was exploding and in need of housing, he built and sold thousands of one-family homes, primarily in Minnesota. He contributed significantly to the creation of the mode of life in the twentieth century that became known as the suburb.

His typical house design was known as the rambler, or the ranch-style house; a modest one family house. Its style borrowed modern ideas that had been developed by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School. The design emphasized horizontality, large windows, a relatively flattened roof, and eaves that extend like the brim of a hat. The prototype of this style is Wright's first independent commission, with its innovative design: the William H. Winslow House of River Forrest, Illinois built in 1893.