Homebuilding across the country stopped completely during World War II as materials were diverted to the war effort, and when residential construction resumed after the war, architects broke with past traditions and embraced modernism. One-story ranch houses with low-pitched roofs, wide overhanging eaves, and asymmetrical façades became the most popular house type of the 1950s, while widespread automobile use led to new subdivisions with larger lots allowing maximum street frontage. In Ronan, local banker Don Olsson and his wife Mildred hired Mildred's brother, Thomas Balzhiser, a graduate of Montana State University, to design their stylish modernist home, one of the first ranch houses in town. Its design included characteristic ribbon and picture windows overlooking the Mission Mountains, a partially enclosed patio connecting the homeowners to the outdoors, an open-space floor plan, built-in wardrobes and buffet, and a custom fireplace of horizontally laid stone quarried near Elmo. The Olssons gave Balzhiser almost free range in designing their 1950-51 house, then commissioned him to design the garage two years after they moved in and the west addition in 1954. Balzhiser later went on to a prominent architectural career in Eugene, Oregon, returned to Ronan to design the Harald Olsson House at 408 Eisenhower Street and the family-owned Community Bank building in 1970, and in 1960 the Olssons moved to another house he designed three miles south of Ronan.