New American Home '97 opened its doors January 24-27, as part of the National Association of Home Builders' 53 Annual Convention and Exposition.
The 3,387-square-foot house is located in The Woodlands subdivision, one of Houston's premiere planned communities.
The sales price of this exceptional home is $419,900. The official show home for this year's NAHB Convention, designed by Clothier/Sullivan Stevens & Associates and constructed by Dave Presnell Builder, Inc., was built on a highly wooded site.
The use of natural materials incorporates design elements to bring the outdoors in and emphasize the beautiful views of the tress, while maintaining universal design influences.
The floor plan offered flexible space for home office, bedroom suite, extra garage, or hobby room. It even had creative touches like a gazebo, recycling center, an indoor gardening area, and optional gas camp-fire.
Doesn't this house sound great? I thought so, too, but I missed it. My wife and I, pressed for time, chose to tour exquisite homes in the Houston Urban Resort of lake Olympia. (This site also had a large circus tent set up with free food!)
This 1000-acre master planned community has 130 acres of natural lakes.
Elaborate decking, pools and spas, boat docks, and landscaping are common sights in Lake Olympia and the Show Village.
As we began our tour of these two homes, it was apparent that their settings tapped into some of the strongest of design trends: a return to traditionalism, respect for the natural environment, and the relationship between outdoor and indoor living.
Our favorite, was a 5229-square-foot classically styled traditional two-story home with cultured stone exterior walls, cedar like roof tiles and warm copper chimney caps and gutters.
It had the comfort and security of grandma's house but with 21st Century technology.
Features such as: a fantastic home theater room (with terraced viewing levels, dark walls and ceiling, cozy- comfortable theater seating, and a super hi-tech entertainment construction system), whole house surround sound, computerized everything, and state of the art office/library right off the foyer, another current design theme in luxury homes, and a "Rich and Famous" master suite-bath closet.
The kitchen is rich with Wellborn cherry cabinets with solid surface counter tops. The overall design is excellent. The house truly has "life-cycle", a term used to describe homes that adapt effortlessly as families grow and change.
Returning to Northwest Florida, much of the opulence of such a home is not commonplace. However, our quality of construction in many ways is better. Many of the products I saw are standard in our upper end homes, and technology is creeping in to all levels of construction. The prices of our homes are definitely better, but most of all we don't have all that traffic.