Fall in the Mountains is about autumn in mountainous regions and how designs from this licensed Architect provide added enjoyment.
Above is the actual, untouched photograph from the rear view porch of the Mountain Meadow House in the late October mountains at the southern tip of the Appalachian Mountain chain, locally called the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Seeing this actual view from a HOME ARCHITECTS ® house evokes the typical reaction of
“Of course! This is what you’d want to see from any property in this region.”
However, you might be surprised to see what other designers and builders often do: They often ignore this sort of spectacular view. How? By using small windows and turning the house so it is not pointing at this kind of view. Don’t believe this? Doesn’t make sense?
There’s a larger house being built right now behind this one. The builders are asking nearly $3M for it. They aren’t likely to get it. Why?
–They are mainly using itty bitty windows: perhaps 30″ wide x 4′ tall.
— They turned the house to ignore what views they could have had and instead angled the house toward the garage of this house and to the cut-bank of earth slope behind it. Let’s hear that again: instead of looking down the 400′ to 500′ foot long view they could have had on their own site, they ignored that and shortened the view drastically and fatally, by looking at their neighbor’s garage and the solid earth wall behind their house as their “private-main view.” Tragic.
–Poor site choice. That other property doesn’t have much, if any real view. Should never have decided to build a multi-million $ house on it.
–Poor topographic choices: they spent a year changing the earth to make a flat place. This was not necessary and wasted huge $ and time. And in construction, time = $.
The HOME ARCHITECTS ® house above has a glorious giant window wall, approximately 20′ tall x 36′ wide, framing the view you see in the photo above. Of course! That’s what should be done for anyone’s house that has a great view like this. This wonderful house also was built on the existing land, without bulldozing it. That just wasn’t necessary and also resulted in a better flow of rain around the house and a much more usable crawlspace, instead of what must be a very pinched crawlspace next door.
The lack of site planning insight and site choice for the house being built behind this one is unfortunate. For the builders (who will likely never realize the profits they had hoped to obtain), and for whomever buys that house. It’s disappointing. Too late now.
Don’t make this sort of mistake. All designs are not created equal. Engage HOME ARCHITECTS ® to help you find the right property with the best views for you, then have them analyze that land and program your lifestyle to result in a superior solution like you see in the photo above.
fall in the mountains