Learn your styles!

I came across a real estate brochure last week that gave me a great laugh. The realtors described the following 2 homes as being "Center Hall Colonial", and for the life of me, I don't see why.



Is it because the one on the top is made out of brick? I'm totally stumped by the one on the bottom - how can you have a Center Hall Colonial with an asymetrical entrance? I guess the columns make it "colonial." Basically these are 2 examples of a contractor building a house without a design professional. More than 90% of residences built in our country are not built with the aid of an architect, and folks, this is the ugly result.

Now most of you who are design conscious would never mistake Chanel for Armani, or BMW for Mercedes. Why is it so different for architectural styles? Good design vs. bad design in residential construction is not a topic you'll find covered in any shelter magazine or major newspaper. I just read a nearly half page review why Microsoft's Zune is never going to make it in the marketplace despite a good design in the NYT last week. I've never seen such a critique on current residential construction.

Here's an original Center Hall Colonial in Williamsburg. It's Bassett Hall originally built in the mid 1700's. It eventually became the home to John D. and Abby Rockefeller, and is now a part of Historic Williamsburg.

It's design is based in English Georgian architecture obviously because the people in Williamsburg were from England. They couldn't afford brick to replicate the Georgian houses, but they were able to use the basic center hall plan and symmetrical elevation. This house has a lovely proportion and presence in the landscape.

Below a very common 20th century Center Hall Colonial. I like the fact that it remains true to the basic plan and symmetry.

Next time you're driving around looking at houses, start seeing the Center Hall Colonial vs. the pretenders.

It's All About the Proportion

One of my favorite things to do when traveling around the US is to go to the older neighborhoods that were built between the two world wars. When architects came back from Europe after serving in WWI, they brought back a wealth of visual information. The results can be seen in these neighborhoods; the middle and upper middle classes could have a chateau to call their own. What was truly great about this period of building is that we had an abundance of skilled craftsmen whose trade had been passed down from generation to generation. Doing these "old world" styles was a piece of cake for them. The architects and craftmen turned out homes that still exude their grace and proportion today. I never tire of looking at these neighborhoods, and marveling at all the care and talent that went into building them.


Look at the two houses above; both are in the same neighborhood. Both are described as being "Tudor". I doubt you'd have any trouble picking out which one was built in 1928 and which one was built in 2003. Granted the 1928 version has about as much of a relationship to the real Tudor period houses as the 2003 house has to the 1928 house. But at least with the 1928 house there is a quiet and balanced sense of proportion between all the elements in the house's front elevation. There's a lovely blending of details like the half-timbering patterns, the use of rough-hewn clapboard up at the gable peak, and the strong addition of the brick chimney. It's a very sophisticated composition.

The 2003 version of Tudor appears to have been designed in plan - by which I mean the clients wanted this here and that there, and the contractor slapped a few gables on the exterior container, along with 3 pieces of half-timbering so they could call it a Tudor. It is not a 3 dimensional composition like the 1928 house. It's nothing more than a super-sized suburban box. Was a designer even involved?

In this day and age when super-sizing is hopefully a thing of the past, maybe we can return to building homes where grace and proportion matter over square footage. Wouldn't you rather have a house of real rooms you use vs. vast amounts of amorphous space? I'm reminded of an episode of "Housewives of Atlanta" where the owner proudly shows off her McMansion; it was one large undefined room after another (all with double high ceilings). No one in the family lived in these rooms; the kids had a TV room in the basement; the wife spent all her time in her office. All I could think about was why on earth was this behemoth built. Why is it that people stopped caring about how their homes are used (and what they look like) vs. just owning space?