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In-Sync Style
New homes on old sites can be good neighbors
By Laine Bergeson
Photo by Landmark Photography And Design
“It’s location, location, location,” says Tim Quigley, principal of Quigley Architects in Minneapolis, explaining the teardown-and-rebuild trend. Homeowners are looking for desirable lots in first-ring suburbs and city neighborhoods closer to where they work and play. The catch? They prefer newly constructed homes, and all the amenities and modern conveniences that come with them—homes, in other words, more often found in Plymouth than Powderhorn.
“New construction in older neighborhoods is all related to commute time. As the freeways become more congested, people are finding the commute to be too much. They’re voting with their feet,” observes Quigley. And many of us expect more out of our homes today, he notes. “It’s the difference between what we expect of a 1930s-era car and a new car; we’ve come to expect the power steering and the GPS.”
Twenty-first century expectations include more square footage—in 1973, the average U.S. home was 1,660 square feet, while the 2005 national average topped 2,400 square feet—open floor plans, owner’s suites with full baths, bathrooms on more than one floor, a mudroom, more flexible spaces, and updated electrical and heating systems. With a wish list like this, there comes a point, from a cost-benefit perspective, when building new makes more sense than remodeling an older home, regardless of its charm quotient.
And, of course, sometimes it is simply a matter of style. “You don’t meet many people who say, ‘I’m just dying to live in a rambler,’” chuckles Quigley.
But what about the impact of infill homes on the character and identity of older neighborhoods? Most lots in the city and first-ring suburbs are hard pressed to accommodate larger (sometimes by half) houses. When a monster house is squeezed in, it looks noticeably out of place. New, supersized homes that employ a markedly different aesthetic than the rest of the housing stock on the block likewise stick out.
Photo by Landmark Photography And Design
One new home near Lake of the Isles is a good example of this kind of infill home. Developed by Paul Stepnes, principal of Chester House Homes in Minneapolis, and architect Deborah Everson of Domain Architecture, the new home is perfectly in step with the surrounding neighborhood—from the exterior. It boasts a low, dormered south Minneapolis-style roof line, a traditional front porch, old-fashioned copper gutters, and maintenance-free siding that looks and feels like wood. “It has the feel of a New England farmhouse,” says Stepnes. “We wanted the house to tell a story—to look like a 100-year-old house that has grown with families through the decades. We designed it intentionally so that it looks like additions have been put on at different times.”
Head indoors, however, and the story changes. It’s a 5,000-square-foot house that “looks like a 2,500-square-foot cottage from the curb,” says Stepnes. A charming front porch that runs the width of the house gives way to a roomy foyer and flexible living spaces. When you consider the highly efficient in-floor heating, low-maintenance trim of recycled plastic that looks and feels like wood, full-house wiring for DVD and CD players, open kitchen and hearth room, owner’s suite with accompanying bath, and three spacious bedrooms—none of which share walls (another common complaint with older houses)—you feel fully steeped in 2007. Wide transition spaces make the house wheelchair accessible, and an elevator gives it aging-in-place adaptability. The house, now for sale, is designed to appeal to a broad spectrum, from young families to families with aging parents, says Stepnes.
Urban boomerangs—one-time city residents who moved to the suburbs for the kids, but eventually find their way back to the city—often prefer a home with up-to-the-minute amenities. One such couple approached Tim Fuller, an architect with SALA Architects in Minneapolis, about building a new home in St. Paul.
“They had been living in Minneapolis and were starting a family and thought, ‘Let’s give suburban living a try,’” says Fuller. “So they moved to Lake Elmo, but they didn’t like it. They weren’t finding the setting that they thought they might and they wanted to get back into the urban mix.” This couple found a lot they loved in the St. Anthony neighborhood of St. Paul. They tore down the existing house, and Fuller designed a new, yet neighborhood-appropriate home for them.
“The house is 2,400 square feet [plus 600 unfinished square feet], which is small by suburban standards, but we designed the main living areas in an open and accessible manner to create long views throughout the house to make it feel bigger,” says Fuller. “We jettisoned the formal dining room to create space, and we just kept things open.”
The house features new-home amenities such as a main-level half-bath, office space, walk-in pantry, and mudroom. Yet it also has a charming open front porch and brick and stucco exterior that helps it fit in with its more established neighbors. The house is not oversized for the lot, notes Fuller, and it has a detached garage that you enter off the alley—not a huge attached garage facing the street so endemic to the suburbs.
The growing appeal of city living, an aging housing stock, and the desire to live with the latest conveniences guarantees the infill trend will continue. Any number of neighborhood-insensitive homes have popped up in sought-after urban areas, as have modern homes that fit into their surroundings. “This type of building is doable,” says Stepnes. “Instead of getting mad at McMansions, I’m setting an example of what can be done instead.”
Laine Bergeson is a Minneapolis writer and editor.
For more information on resources featured in this story, please reference our Buyer's Guide.
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