By Lance McCarthy
Does your house have style?
As I’m talking with clients, one topic keeps coming up: house styles.
Are you a Tudor? or a Cape Cod? or an American Farmhouse? Sounds like some twisted personality test label! l resolved to get to the bottom of this question.
I asked my buddy Mr. Awesome Architect (most people call him Joel Perry) to help learn us some edumucation ‘bout house styles. Here’s our conversation…
Me: Joel! I hope you aren’t mad that I just interrupted you in the middle of your work drawing a really important set of plans…
Joel: Of course not. My eye always twitches like this. What’s up?
Me: I have some questions for you. I’ll start with a stupid one. What is house style?
Joel: First of all, there are no stupid questions, only stupid interviewers (he pauses for effect). So, most people think of house style as having to do with the shape and character traits of a house as you might see it from the sidewalk. But house style goes much deeper. I like to call it the language of the house. If you think about how someone from Paris has a very different natural language than someone from Beijing, houses are the same way. Each house has a language that it “speaks” which includes all kinds of things from the pitch of the roof to the layout of the rooms inside.
Me: So where do house styles come from?
Joel: House styles tend to evolve over time, but they are almost always born in a particular place. The qualities of that place help those houses develop in the way they do. What is the weather like there? What building materials are available? What is the landscape like? An extreme example would be an igloo. Works great in the arctic, but would not work so well in New Mexico.
For example, Cape cods have steeper roofs for the stark, stormy weather of New England. Mission style uses the terra cotta and adobe that was available in the Southwest.
They also reflect the way their builders view the world. The Cape Cods are very simple and frugal in layout, as the early New Englanders were. The Victorian or Italian Rennaissance shows the opposite viewpoint.
Me: Makes me wonder what house style I am.
Joel: I’m thinking a teepee.
Me: (ignoring Joel’s passive aggressive attempt at offending me so he can get back to work) Can you mess up house style?
Joel: There are definitely some guidelines you can break that can really make people not like hanging around.
Me: Sounds like my entire 8th grade experience.
Joel: Here are a couple of common ones. First, when someone ends up tacking several different styles together on a house with no real clarity. Many newer homes fall into this trap by adding stone or columns or peaks in the roof in an attempt at making a house more appealing.
Me: Like when the old guy in the movie Up built that small house in the middle of all those office buildings?
Joel: Well, that wasn’t exactly…nevermind. Yes. Like in the movie Up.
Me: Joel, thanks for taking the time. I’ll let you get back to your work now. Don’t get too comfortable though. I’ll be back in a few weeks to bug you about one of the most popular house styles in Prairie Village!
Can you guess which one? I’ll give you a hint…
