Photo: CITYLAB, KayLynn Deveney/Kehrer Verlag

The Cinderella Homes are ranch-style homes characterized by high-gabled, shake-shingle roofs and decorative gingerbread trim. Built in the Atomic Age by Jean Valjean Vandruff, Cinderella Homes are among the tract homes built for the scientists and workers who worked on building and testing the atomic bomb in Albuquerque. Their “wife-planned” design was intended to free women from certain household chores. Now, over 60 years after the first one was built, original Cinderella Homes are nearly impossible to find; diamond-pane windows are no longer in fashion and cedar shake-shingle roofs don’t meet contemporary building codes.