Friday, June 15, 2012

Home Builders Tour Homes Mostly Lead with the Garage

Olsen Design and Development
The annual Home Builder tour of homes starts tomorrow and it's always interesting to see what is the fashion.

The most interesting house, it turns out, is in Monmouth. The Olsen house has a traditional front porch oriented towards the public ways. It's got neo-traditional curb appeal. But in back it's configured with a granny flat to accomodate multi-generational housing. It's skinnier, too, and might fit on a narrow lot as infill.

At the other extreme is the Wheeler house, all garage. Not even a meaningful window on the street.

T Wheeler Homes
It's plainly centered on the cars, and oriented towards a back deck and views. It's all about privacy and the golf course.

Most of the other houses are in between, but almost all of them lead with the garage rather than with a front porch. They aren't meant for walkable neighborhoods.

2 comments:

B+ said...

Ah, yes...variations on the "Snout House." I remember my first time driving down a newly-developed neighborhood of such homes: I knew something was wrong, but couldn't at first figure out exactly what it was. Then I realized: the neighborhood was in reality a wall of garage doors. The visual sterility led me to wonder what sort of "community" such a street might have. It reminded me of 19th century industrial row-housing I saw in England.

Anonymous said...

More at Hinessight in a note from the Home Builders show!