The American Craftsman style was inspired by the the British Arts and Crafts movement which began in the 1860s as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. The Arts and Crafts movement emphasized handwork over mass production.

The American Arts and Crafts movement encouraged originality, simplicity of form, local natural materials and the visibility of handicraft.

In Southern California, the Pasadena-based firm Greene and Greene was the most renowned practitioner of the original American Craftsman Style. Their projects for Ultimate Bungalows include the Gamble House and Robert R. Blacker House in Pasadena and the Thorsen House in Berkeley.

In Northern California, architects who designed Craftsman buildings include Bernard Maybeck, with his Swedenborgian Church, and Julia Morgan, who designed eleven buildings for Asilomar and six buildings for Mills College.

In San Diego, architect David Owen Dryden designed and built many Craftsman California bungalows in the North Park district. The 1905 Marston House in Balboa Park was designed by local architects Irving Gill and William Hebbard. Frank Lloyd Wright founded the Prairie School which was an outgrowth of Craftsman aesthetics and Craftsman philosophy of quality home design for the middle class.

Distinctive features of the Craftsman style are:

• Symmetrical
• Mixed materials
• Shingles
• Hand-crafted stone or woodwork
• Low-pitched roof lines with gabled or hipped roof
• Deeply overhanging eaves
• Exposed rafters or decorative brackets under eaves
• Front porch beneath extension of main roof
• Tapered, square columns supporting roof
• 4-over-1 or 6-over-1 double-hung windows (Newer Craftsman houses may have )
• 2-over-1 or 3-over-1 casement windows