Publishers aim to bask in glow of popular design style.

There's nothing like a couple of years to add perspective to Southern California's greatest contribution to residential architecture: the mid-century modern house, a.k.a. a 40-year-old tract home.

It's a phenomenon that one South Pasadena couple is banking on by getting into the unforgiving business of magazines. Atomic Ranch, launched earlier this month, is dedicated to the once-mocked but more recently appreciated single-story ranch house that proliferated here in the 1940s.

Co-publishers Jim Brown and Michelle Gringeri-Brown launched the 64-page, full-color quarterly this month, dropping fewer than 5,000 copies of the $5.95-per-issue publication at a handful of bookstores. (Yearly subscriptions are $19.95.)

Brown, who also serves as its photographer, said they were in discussions with Barnes & Noble Inc. for broader circulation for the June issue.

Inaugural stories include a feature on a radically decorated home by renowned modernist tract-house builder Joseph Eichler in Orange, and pieces on restored homes in Glendale and Hermosa Beach.

"Everyone was coveting other stuff, but no one's covering affordable mid-century housing," said Brown, who has been a photographer for publications ranging from Sunset to Primedia Inc. rifles such as Motor Trend. "So we're filling a niche."

The magazine follows a path set by Los Angeles-based Western Interiors and Design, launched last April with a circulation of 230,000. But Ranch's focus on modern residential architecture is more akin to Dwell, a San Francisco periodical that debuted in 2001.

Though Dwell's circulation is about a quarter of Architectural Digest's 812,000, its numbers have jumped substantially. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, Dwell's 176,000 circulation at year end was up from 83,000 in February 2001. Architectural Digest, also based in L.A., is the "shelter" magazine circulation leader.

As opposed to higher end rifles like Architectural Digest, Atomic Ranch targets existing and prospective homeowners in their 30s and 40s who often have more taste than cash, said Brown.

"They're not super rich but they have a heightened appreciation of style," he said. "People gravitate to the houses that their grandparents lived in, so these houses from the 1950s appeal to a younger group."

Half life

Brown declined to disclose revenues or launch costs for Atomic Ranch. Based on its published rate card, the 26 pages of ads in its inaugural issue could have generated about $48,000.

But in order to bring in advertisers to a publication whose circulation figures have yet to be audited, publishers will often offer discounted rates for early issues, said Tom Weston, president and chief executive of advertising agency Weston/Mason & Associates.

"Seeing up to half off the rate card for an early unaudited edition certainly wouldn't be unusual and still wouldn't harm the magazine's integrity later on," said Weston.

While an Air New Zealand ad adorns the back cover, most advertisers sell items ranging from mid-century homes in Palm Springs to fiberglass chairs.

With significant start-up costs and limited revenues, neither Brown nor Gringeri-Brown, editor of L.A.-based American Bungalow, have quit their day jobs.

That may be a wise choice. Last year, 87 magazines were launched nationwide, down from 122 the year before. At the same time, 40 either shut down or suspended publishing, and of those about a quarter were less than five years old, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.

Regionally, a magazine launch can be even more daunting.

"Someone once said Los Angeles was the Vietnam of magazine publishing, because conventional strategies don't work here," said Stephen Randall, adjunct professor at USC's Annenberg School of Journalism. The region's geographic spread and deep penetration of national publications makes starting up a regional title more challenging, he said.

Still, a soft launch and quarterly release schedule may allow Atomic Ranch to gain a presence and pick up advertisers without burning through its cash, said Randall. He added that the magazine's narrow focus and home-related subject matter could also work to its advantage.

"Look at cable channels--you've got dozens of home decorating shows," said Randall. "Why the word's into nesting, I'm not sure, but you see it across other media."

The magazine caters to a market that has embraced the homes designed by modern architects John Lautner, R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra. These structures began increasing in popularity and status in the 1990s as they began hitting their half-century mark.

More recently, that popularity has filtered down to the more humble and prevalent works of ranch-style architects such as Clifford May, as well as modern tract homebuilders such as Eichler.

"About half of Southern California buyers prefer Spanish and Mediterranean style, another 30 percent prefer traditional and the remaining 20 percent prefer contemporary," said Jan Horn, founder and executive director of Coldwell Banker's Architectural Division, which specializes in selling architecturally significant houses. "Of those, more people are looking for mid-century modern. It's having a renaissance."