July 23, 2008
· Filed under Architecture, Remodeling · Tagged Architecture, interior design, Remodeling, rennovation, Split Entry, Split Foyer
Unlike the North, where I live, many homes in the Southern regions of the US don’t have basements, especially, in areas where the water table is high. A split-foyer design makes so much sense in order to gain that much needed basement/family room/storage space.
There are some wonderful examples on Mitchell Homes (Alabama) website. Link A great site to get ideas about how a splits floorplan can be moved around. It’s also proof that splits can have great bones and character.
See how his houses are built with a nice spacious dining room up front next to the entry where the living room normally is? I think that’s beautiful! That’s where I’ve decided to put my dining room in our remodel and a large family room will be built off the back of the house.
July 22, 2008
· Filed under Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, Remodeling, Split Entry, Split Foyer · Tagged Architecture, beauty, Frank Lloyd Wright, Remodel, Remodeling, rooms
The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty. - Frank Lloyd Wright, 1908
July 21, 2008
· Filed under Architecture, Remodeling · Tagged Architecture, bi-level, Frank Lloyd Wright, Isabel Roberts House, landscape, organic design, Remodeling, rennovation, Split Entry, Split Foyer
I just might have to reconsider the disdain I have for split style homes in light of some surprising information I just discovered. Maybe I have it all wrong! I’m correct that it was a man who designed the first split level home in America but I didn’t know it was none other than Frank Lloyd Wright! Ha! Surprised? I am but I shouldn’t be at all. It makes perfect sense. As everyone knows (or should know), Wright was a maverick in home design in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s; his ’organic’ style revolutionized building architecture. Wright thought a house should blend into the surrounding landscape – many of the homes he designed even incorporated trees or streams already existing on the land. Smaller stair runs and living levels spread out make a house feel as if it’s part of the natural setting just for the fact that it’s closer to the ground, unlike the beautiful, but monstrous and obtrusive, Victorians that were built in his time.
Isabel Roberts House - considered to be the first split level in America
Alrighty, I can accept that. Who am I to dis Frank Lloyd Wright? Hold on a second…I wonder how Wright would feel about how his design concept matured into tract housing with row after row of identical, boring splits? Would he consider “that” organic? Hmm, I highly doubt it. Would he cringe when he saw the modern take on his original split level idea – the split foyer, or bi-level, house? I shouldn’t speak for Wright, but if he were alive today, I think he’d be very disappointed. He would probably be the first person to say, “Absolutely, re-design that house to give it some character!”
