This September, I made my pilgrimage to Raleigh for the North Carolina American Institute of Architects’ annual home tour. Every fall, the organization opens a half-dozen or so recently completed homes to the public. I have always enjoyed the show. It is part architecture tour, part construction exhibition, part idea laboratory. You get to see new materials, clever details, and excellent work by talented architects and tradespeople. Most of all, you encounter a pride in housing as a craft that is generally absent from our public conversations today.
This year’s tour was similar to previous years in one respect: it was dominated by expensive houses, many apparently in the $1.5 million to $4 million range. These showcased almost every conceivable amenity, material, and technological innovation available, except perhaps the most interesting design problem of all: how to create a good life within limited means.
One house was different.
Deep into Northeast Raleigh stands a modest, one-story brick cottage. The surrounding streets are bracketed with the kinds of small starter homes America once produced by the hundreds of thousands, most less than 1,000 square feet.
That modest scale is increasingly under pressure. This particular neighborhood is close to downtown and desirable, and the drive in revealed plenty of teardowns and replacement homes. Many of these new houses are considerably larger. Others are townhouses or multifamily buildings. Nearly all of it uninspired.
The owner of this particular house had another idea.
She wanted to improve her home substantially without losing its relationship to the neighborhood. She wanted a beautiful kitchen and entertaining space. She wanted gardens, a pool, and a detached office. There was an indoor-outdoor shower and a large accordion door that dissolved the boundary between the house and the yard. The thoughtful amenities made it feel less like a starter home and more like a modest personal resort.
But the owner also did something considerably more interesting.
She made room for other people. And I immediately recognized that these two things — a personal paradise and providing for others — are, for most of us, related.
