Anybody know this house?

I'm working on a new project and the client saw a house that inspires him ("Chateaux des Reves" by Architect John C. Henry).

The house can be seen here:

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the link to Good Morning America's story on the house is dead. Anyone happen to catch it?]

We're in the very early stages (site has been picked and bought, we're working on writing the program and determining budget, etc.)

This client so far has been a dream client, (his favorite answer to any design question is "whatever you think would be best, as long as it's really nice" and he's answer to budget questions is always "whatever it costs, I want it done right"). In the next week or so I'll be sitting down with the client and the builder to really hash out a firm budget ($200/s.f. has been thrown out but we need to find out how much above that we can go).

Anyone have any good additional info/pictures that would fit with this "style"? His original design desire was "Traditional French Colonial", them he saw this house and wants something fairly similar. Appreciate any/all help and/or pointers.

Michael (LS)

PS - Let the FAQ flames begin!

Reply to
Michael (LS)
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I liked this bit

" It is a study of classical proportion in plan and elevation. "

Er.......no it aint

And why oh why is that site right click disabled? like that's going to stop anything

Michael (LS) wrote:

Reply to
Tim

Looks like a disaster to me... $200/sq. ft. ain't gonna cut it. Closer to $350-$450.

"Traditional French Colonial"? Just in the details, right? The plan is fully 21st century?

I dunno...I've done a project or two like this and it's never ended well...unless the client had more money than sense (and usually they don't have the more money very long).

Reply to
3D Peruna

Up here in the NY tristate 'burbs, you'd be hitting the $500-600SF range in the blink-of-an-eye. I'm doing a Tuscan Villa style right now, it'll be all stucco exterior, drywalled interior (no exposed beams and ceilings etc) and it's getting very difficult to keep inside $250SF

Reply to
Pierre Levesque, AIA

LOL... "you want to buy the appliances yourself?" "GREAT idea!"... "AND all the hardware??? GREAT idea... AND the floor materials??? GREAT idea... and all the trim for doors and windows??? GREAT idea!!!"

Reply to
Pierre Levesque, AIA

formatting link
> [However, the link to Good Morning America's story on the house is dead.

I just realized that the $200/s.f. wasn't stated clearly/correctly. It's actually "$200/s.f. with an unfinished basement". If the house ends up ~7500s.f. that's ~$1,500,000. of which only ~5000 s.f. would be finished (the basement would be insulated but not wired, plumbed, sheetrocked, etc.). At the next meeting I'll run approxiamate footage numbers past the builder and client and we can start "firming up" the budget.

Yeah, the problem is the client can't say "what" he likes about the house, only that he likes it. When pressed, he can only point out things he doesn't like. Show him a photo and he's pretty good about giving feedback, ask him what/why and it gets cloudy. LOL, that's why I was looking for photos of potentially similiar styled houses so that he could say yeah/nay to the details (i.e. he loves arches, he hates the stone on the "inspiration house", etc.)

At this point it seems the "sense" is what's lacking. The homeowner really doesn't care as long as it's re-sellable. The money/budget hopefully we'll hammer out soon.

Thanks for your input, Michael (LS)

Reply to
Michael (LS)

formatting link
[However, the link to Good Morning America's story on the house is dead.

Colonial", them

Thanks for the tip, buying more stock in the company that makes Windex! Ken PS:Who cleans all them windows???

Reply to
Ken S. Tucker

I agree, it CAN be a nightmare. This project is really just me and the client. Since the builder has already selected, I've invitied him to join some of these early discussions. At this point his role is solely to advise on rough budget issues (he's been in the business for 25 years and his "rough" numbers tend to be more accurate than a lot of builders "contract" numbers. IMO, at this stage it's nice to be able to bounce the potential numbers off him.

Yeah, that sounds like the ideal client/project. Unfortunitly, those types don't come along every day (at least IME)

That's pretty similiar to the way I normally work when I'm hired by the homeowner. I like to get rough numbers very early in the process (and sometimes a couple of updates throughout) so that the design & budget meet at the end. I've gotten quite a few jobs where the homeowners hired an architect who designed with NO regard for their budget. I did a job last year where I was hired to draw up CD's (I was given the schematic drawings) for a custom home and nobody bothered to ask the homeowner (who spent $32,000 on the schematic sketches) what their budget was. The homeowners wanted to spend $800k and the design was 7600 s.f. (and not a cheap

7600s.f.).

Thanks for you input,

Michael (LS)

Reply to
Michael (LS)

There's this firefox plug-in that lets you turn on and off things like flash and java on the fly. Turn off java, and it is no longer right click disabled :).

Reply to
Edgar

We have a guru lurking in the mix :-)

Thanks for the tip

BTW a kludge I discovered was if you wanted a copy of a picture that was heavily protected

Open a new email message

Drag and drop the pictures into the email

And then mail it to yourself :-)

Tim

Reply to
Tim

No guru, I just love me some pron :). Thanks for the tip.

Reply to
Edgar

The way I do it is to just (using Internet Explorer) >FILE>SEND>SEND PAGE BY EMAIL and waa-laa!

Not that I would EVER copy an image without first a getting written release from the copyright holder....

Reply to
Michael (LS)

YIKES! forgive me, but that house is an abomination. its nothing more than a "custom" spec shack - a hodgepodge collage of everything under the sun. horrible.

with that, id reccommend the book "Creating a New Old House" by Russell Versaci to your client in the hopes of steering him/her in a more architecturally correct direction. give him a home, not a house!

Reply to
steve

What kind of abomination? Something we wouldn't design Something they told us not to design in Design Studio Inaccurate (was it trying to be?) As much a mix of stylistic references as San Simeon Actually a bad thing to live in given the style of life the people living in it want to lead

"the client decided on"

I have no idea what you mean by "shack" unless it's just to be aimlessly demeaning. It has more than four walls and one room. More than even a few rooms. It has more than one roof.

Aren't some of the most celebrated buildings in architectural history (not real history) "shacks"? Or are those the good kind?

Ah, a purist. Can't have a porch and a castle in one house. Can't have gothic in a room one person uses for one purpose and baroque in another used and targeted differently. Worse, the bastards probably put a gothic finial in the same space as a renaissance scroll! It must be bad. Please don't come over to my place. I've got a picture of Audrey Hepburn in the same room as a picture of a cable stayed bridge. The other room has a japanese etching of a rural farmyard AND an traditional suspension bridge. Your brain would likely explode at the crimes against nature.

Why not recommend... that he just do a good job at what he's paid for? Or is Russ the only architect (is Russ an architect?) capable of teaching the unwashed masses about the elite bullshit architecture pretends is required? Maybe having the OP read Russ (likely the OP is more "qualified" to do something useful with the text) and apply the lessons or even gently tutor the poor Philistine who dared like this splendid piece of Philistine pleasing work (oh my GOD! Architecture that completely and utterly succeded at its intended aims (maybe it isn't as bad as we think)).

Aside from mentioning Russ's text you don't offer any real ideas of what "architecturally correct" is. What is architecture? Sorry, Architecture. You seem to think "only one style" is a requirement. I can't really find much else.

But isn't building to a style really the fall back position of ... crap architects with no vision? "I'll just throw togther a box and tart it up with tuscan/post-modern/classical/cottage/duck frou frou and call it a 'design.'" So I guess designing to rigid stylistic constraints can't be what your after... Nope, I can't figure it out. What is "good architecture"? Sorry, Architecture. Capital 'A'.

Reply to
gruhn

I'll look into that book to see if it's something I want to "require" the client to read.

Appreciate the pointer!

Michael (LS)

Reply to
Michael (LS)

"Don" wrote in message news:fOxie.3848$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...

Ah, but I'm just a lowly drafter and NOT an extremely talented Architect. Maybe that's part of the discrepancy. I agree it's not the IDEAL project but it's better than average (for me) and it puts food on my table (and that's the main reason I work at all!)

At the risk of offending some people.... I think it's far to easy for Architects/Designers/Whatevers to let their ego balloon. Certainly it doesn't happen to everyone, but I've seen it with alarming frequency. (maybe that has something to do with the "lack" of respect and pay that a lot of Architects complain?). I'll be the first to admit, I'm FAR from the best "designer" in the world (hell, I know a handful of people locally who blow me away). But that's rarely the point. I try to bridge the gap (and it's a HUGE gap) between "spec" houses and "Architect Designed" houses. My projects are better designed than "specs" but not necessarily as nice as some work being done by local Architects. I can look at all my projects once finished and say "I gave the client a good design/product for a great price". I can live with that. Architects tend to complain about the general lack of decent design in the majority of homes but then do nothing to try to fix the problem (instead most lust after doing an amazingly designed, uber-exspensive house). My work certainly won't be studied in schools 200 years from now but I'm OK with that. In the course of this year I (and my assistant) will have drawn up plans used to build 150+ houses across the country. Will they win a bunch of awards? Nope. Do I care? Nope. My goal is just to make each house better than "spec" for a "spec" price. Each client I can enlighten/educate will hopefully retain (to some degree) that desire for good design for the rest of their lives. Hopefully, each succesive owner of one of those homes will have their lives enriched (even marginally).

Nor would anyone (probably) want every job to be so.

Well, I rambled enough (for now). Thanks to everyone for your comments and input.

Michael (LS)

Reply to
Michael (LS)

"Michael (LS)"

Your client might in fact like and prefer a house that may be closer to something those such as Chris or I might approve of... if not ABC's 'Good Morning America'. :)

I like elements of the house, myself, but to get what I wanted out of it, I'd want to seriously rip out, add to, scale back and reconfigure many of them. Some of the interior treatments I'd keep as they are quite attractive, if expensive-looking.

Of course, after I got through with it, it would be a totally different house. :)

Reply to
Richard MacIntyre

"gruhn"

For one, like the word 'LUXURY' on the homepage, it's way too small.

Reply to
Richard MacIntyre

The tall roofs. The many roofs. The articulation of the front. The general heavy massing. The adequately "impressive to guests" entry. At a guess "big but busy".

Not an easy question. Consider that client is thinking "do I like the doors or the chimney?" when you are asking "do you like the proportions or the articulation..." Client may well not know that the specifics of what he likes actually exist.

Not a bad idea at all, but if I've hit some of the target re: massing/articulation then you might miss the big correct answer.

Reply to
gruhn

True, unfortunitly at this point there have been no pointers to What you and Chris like (just that this house isn't it). I'm not agreeing/disagreeing with everyone's thoughts on the house. I personally like some of the details/elements but find the overall interior "gaudy". The exterior IMHO isn't too bad though I'd definately change some things (like losing the "turret", using different stone, etc.) My project is going to be significantly different for a number of reasons (i.e. s.f. is going to be less than 1/3, and that'll be over 3 floors, not 2). For instance, the front elevation (the color sketch shows more of the elevation than the photo does) won't have the octagonal room on the right, no turret, and none of the spaces/rooms on the left that protrude out past the entry (I'm unsure if that's the garage or guest house).

Yes, what we're going to end up with will be much different if for no other reason than the footprint will be 1/4 the size.

I agree, luckily most of the stone (columns, fireplace, etc.) we can get for dirt cheap (which will really help the budget). The HomeOwner wants to use a fair amount of stone because he can get it at a signifacant discount (though if I'm not careful he'll put a stone sculpture in ever nook and cranny! He said he wanted stone lions flanking the drive, one every 10' up the drive and I've convinced him that's too much lawn ornamentation, so at this point he gets one on each side and that's it!).

I've prep'ed him for that. At the square footage we're talking about the house is going to end up a SIGNIFICANTLY different scale and therefore a lot of the elements/details will be scaled appropriately for his house, and not like something he saw on a 18000 s.f. behemoth.

Appreciate your thoughts/comments,

Michael (LS)

Reply to
Michael (LS)

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