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If I was disabled, the ability to easily navigate my home would be more important than a pool. You can have a real ranch house and a pool for less money than that house. Maybe the square footage is smaller but your overall quality of life should be more important. If you think you have trouble walking stairs now, it's only going to get worse. Do you have any idea how frustrating and time consuming those stair lifts are?
Here are two ranches in Commack NY with in ground pools.
Most of the "split levels" (as I described them above) were built in the 1970s when that style was popular. There are certain communities that have tons of them, courtesy of the development builders of that era
I'm familiar with them, and lived in one for a while. Their main advantage is cheap square footage, but there's a reason they aren't common in new construction anymore. Having to go up an outside stairway to enter in the middle of another stairway was an odd design choice, and people generally don't want the living area/kitchen to be in the most inaccessible part of the house. They have some good qualities, but the living arrangement and accessibility aren't among them. I'd seriously reconsider that style as a choice given the issues you've already identified. It's not going to improve over time nor is it going to be inexpensive to fix, since the only fix is to flip half the living space to the lower level.
This is what I grew up in (on Long Island). There were about 4 steps outside and you entered directly on the main floor with kitchen, living room and formal dining room. Down half a flight to the level with a family room and the garage (and in many houses in the neighborhood, the original garage was made into a 2nd family room/den, a powder room was added in, and another garage added on. Half a flight down from that was a basement. Back to the main floor, half a flight up was the master with a 3/4 bath, the main bath and 1 bedroom, and up one more half flight was a large 3rd bedroom. There were a handful of ranches but the vast majority of houses in the neighborhood were splits.
There is certainly no possible way an elevator could be added to a house like that. But I guess it would be possible for the "high ranch" the OP linked. For a lot of money, though.
I was wondering if altering your footwear might be simpler than changing floors or buying specific home designs? Can your doctors give you any ideas for footwear (highly cushioned or properly supportive) that would make the foundation and flooring immaterial?
Oh, I've had to wear custom orthotics 24/7 (well, anytime I'm on my feet anyway LOL) for several years now. And those yucky looking "granny shoes" to accommodate them. ;-) It's a combination of foot, leg and spinal issues.
If I was disabled, the ability to easily navigate my home would be more important than a pool. You can have a real ranch house and a pool for less money than that house. Maybe the square footage is smaller but your overall quality of life should be more important.
Oh, I absolutely do NOT want a pool! Sorry if I gave that impression. The only reason I mentioned it is that most people do want to have space for them if the house they buy doesn't already have them. It's really a challenge to find a house that doesn't already have one, in fact. I loathe them (been there done that years ago) and since it costs on average between $5000-$8000 to have one removed -- plus an IGP adds anywhere from $600 to $900 to the property tax bill, depending on the town its' in -- I avoid pools like the plague. I am very much in the minority with that opinion, however.
Square footage of a house is MUCH more important to me than anything else other than the home's actual location (which is the most important thing) and the amount of the property taxes (which is the second most important thing, LOL).
Small ranches almost invariably present a problem when it comes to the ability to navigate the hallway and get in and out of the bedroom and bathroom doors with a wheelchair. They're almost always way too narrow: sharp turns and not enough space for turning radius. The high-ranches with their open layout (kitchen/dining/living room all open to each other) are easier because there are no actual doorways in that part of the house, and all the ones I've been in have a somewhat wider bedroom hall layout than the single narrow short run that you find in the smaller ranches. The main bathroom in a high-ranch is often located at one end of the bedroom-hall rather than smack in the center as in the ranch layouts, and so a wheelchair etc can travel straight in without having to make a 180-degree turn in order to enter.
As far as bedroom accessibility, I've found that colonials are usually by far the easiest but they're simply not built on slabs around here.
ETA: I have to add, in the quality-of-life dept, that I've always felt noticeably less comfortable with a house that has the bedrooms on the ground floor. Even though I'm probably OCD about security and window coverings (I hate naked glass, LOL), there's something about having my bedroom on an upper level that just makes me feel "safer". In my life I've lived in a cape, two ranches, two high-ranches and a colonial; the ranches and the cape (which had an unfinished attic and thus the bedrooms were only on the ground floor) always made me feel a bit uneasy in that regard. One those lifelong odd quirks that I've had since childhood and I'm sure always will, lol
I know this chair lift issue for a raised ranch was being discussed in 2014, but my info may be relevant to other people today (9/18/16) because I had a chair lift installed in my raised ranch. I live in South Windsor CT. On August 11, 2015 I had a chair lift installed for my wife, who had become unable to use the stairs. Not counting the family room floor, the landing, nor the main floor, the staircase has six steps between the landing and the family room floor and six steps between the landing and the main floor. The battery-powered chair slides on an inclined rail, which is 11 inches high; and rests on eleven supports screwed into the main floor, four steps, the landing, four more steps, and the family room floor. The inclined rail makes a hairpin (180 degree) turn on the landing. The bottom of the rail is approximately four inches above the edge of each step, and the top of the rail is approximately eighteen inches above the edge of each step. (The seat of the chair always remains horizontal.) The chair lift system's battery is always plugged into the house electrical system and is charged when the chair is parked either at the main floor level or at the family room floor level. The chair is always operational, even when the electrical power from the street is disabled. The stair width in my raised ranch is thirty-five inches. At this minimum stair width, with the chair lift installed, walking up and down the stairs is a tight fit, but that is acceptable because the disabled person can leave the main floor, get to the family room, and most importantly, go through the family room to the garage and car for transportation to doctor's appointments, church, recreation, etc.
What exactly is a "high ranch?" That term isn't used in my region. Is it a "split entry" house?
A high ranch has the main living area's on the top level and there's usually a family room, extra bathroom and possibly built in garage on the main level.
OP, a friend of mine had a chair lift for her dad in an old Victorian home and they had a landing in between so it can be done. I remember her saying she rented the chair lift. She showed me a photo and the rail that's used for the chair runs along the lower part of the wall right above the woodwork.
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