Welcome Home

GEOFFREY MOUEN DOES not hesitate to name what he likes best about his Classic Residence.

“The greatest thing about my house is the front porch,” he says. “It's huge. You could entertain on it. So many of the TND (traditional neighborhood development) houses shrink that porch down to 4 or 5 feet. They're just not deep enough. I say if you can walk by a sleeping dog and not wake him, that's big enough.”

Bob Rohde, vice president of design for David Weekley Homes, has a lot of good things to say about that 15-by-24-foot porch as well.

“It's not just a porch you can get a couple chairs on; it's truly a living space,” Rohde says. “We do thousands of front porches. This one, I think, people will walk up (to) and say, ‘That's cool.'”

But the ingenuity and creativity of the house goes well beyond the livability of the front porch. The house is designed, Mouen says, for a young family of urban professionals. They can afford whatever they want, and they don't want a big house, a town-house, or a high-rise. They're buying comfort, not square footage.

“It's luxury living in a cottage-sized house; it's not designed for a big family,” he says. “These people know they won't have more kids.”

From the entry hall, guests can see all the way through the great room to the pool in the backyard. Both the dining room and the great room step down from the entry hall, creating a sense of arrival in each of the spaces. Glazed pocket doors from Simpson make it simple to create a feeling of intimacy for a dinner party in the dining room.

A quiet study completes the main level's living spaces. Accessible only through the great room, it offers a retreat from the busyness of household activities. Mouen sees it as a place for parents to pay the bills and kids to work on their homework, or as a music room with a piano.

Interior designer Kathy Andrews, president of Houston-based Kathy Andrews Interiors, envisions the house as a casual, child-friendly urban cottage, owned by a couple in their 30s with a 9-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy. While the architecture of the house is traditional, the interior space is a blend of classic and contemporary style. Wood floors from Armstrong combine with Sea Gull contemporary lighting throughout the house, topped by dramatic bead board ceiling detail capping the two-story foyer. Timberlake's white bead board kitchen cabinets are paired with grey Silestone countertops and a contemporary backsplash.

“I love the mix of materials in the Classic Residence and the contemporary accents in it,” Andrews says. “We tried to portray a casual elegance with the vintage wood flooring, giving a period feel to the house, yet provide modern amenities that are important today.”

The part of the house that has impressed every professional involved in the project is the his-and-hers master baths. A first for Mouen (“I said it would save marriages”), the pair of bathrooms flanking the master bedroom required only one extra fixture, a second toilet.

The second-floor configuration zeros in on the lifestyle needs of young families. The parents' bedroom is in the center, easy for both children to get to; with dramatic French doors, a vaulted ceiling, and a built-in window seat, it has the feel of a spacious suite. The children's rooms, meanwhile, are their own distinct, private spaces. Plus, the laundry room, complete with a sink and a Whirlpool drying cabinet, is on the second floor, keeping the perpetual piles of clothes away from the public spaces of the house.

One thing the house doesn't lack is bathrooms; there are six, including the powder room in the entry hall and the changing room in the garage by the pool.

“This house is designed by psychologists to keep families together,” Mouen jokes. “No one will fight over bathrooms.”

He thinks it's the kind of house a family might buy when their children are toddlers. The kids' bedrooms are small, Mouen notes, and they might outgrow them by the time they're in high school. Built-in bookshelves, desks, and a vanity help maximize the available space in the girl's room. The boy's room has an industrial loft feel with a tin ceiling from Armstrong.

If they start feeling cramped in their rooms, the kids could spend time in the room above the garage. In the framework of the New Urban Challenge, the second-floor garage space is a total kid zone, with tiled wet areas for painting and other craft projects and lots of room to play games or have a slumber party. It also could easily be a home-school classroom.

In that scenario, there would be plenty of days the students looked longingly out their classroom window at the pool in the backyard. It's nothing fancy, Mouen says, “just a big old rectangular pool.” When they're little, they can splash around in it. As they get older and start thinking about fitness, it's perfect for doing laps.

While the house has extensive detailing, Mouen says all the elements are common materials that can be found at any building supply store.

“It's sort of an example that we can make great, traditional architecture from available materials,” he says. “We can point to it and say, ‘Wow, they built that, and they got the classical detailing right, the casing right, and the roof right, using stock parts right out of Home Depot.' I'm so glad we built it. ... I hope someone loves it enough to say, ‘Weekley, I want one of those.'”

That could well happen, Rohde says. Mouen's interpretation of today's standard open kitchen/breakfast nook/family room configuration reads how most people want to live. Putting the study off the family room instead of a formal living room makes the space more flexible and casual and offers privacy from the “hanging-out” space in the family room and the backyard.

“For a young family buyer, I think this plan works really well,” he says. “There are a lot of elements we could use in a production home. And the elevation is just wonderful. People should just walk by it and think, ‘Oh, my goodness, it's charming.'”

About the ARCHITECT
Geoffrey Mouen has demonstrated his commitment to maintaining standards of excellence while achieving financial goals in his role as town architect for Disney's world-class development, Celebration, Fla., and as architecture and urban design consultant for the town of Jupiter, Fla. His architectural portfolio includes custom homes, many in historic and neo-traditional neighborhoods, as well as commercial office buildings and a Montessori school.