Places in the house - Home front: tips and trends from the world of residential design - HomeDestinations design - Brief Article

Residential Architect, April, 2003 by Nigel F. Maynard

When most architects think of production homes, they think of a box with some exterior decoration troweled on. At this year's International Builders' Show in Las Vegas, a 13,000-square-foot show home sponsored by our sister magazine, BUILDER, broke that mold in true Vegas style: It is dazzlingly, joyously, unabashedly over the top.

After all, unless the Partridge Family blended with the Brady Bunch, who needs that much room? Even with all that space (9,842 square feet heated and cooled; 3,193 in covered outdoor "rooms"), HomeDestinations, as it's called, feels surprisingly intimate. That's because no one room is especially large. The square footage is broken into various rooms and areas within the house, each with its own purpose and ambience. In addition to formal and informal dining and living areas, the house has a "wellness center," a wine cellar, an "adult lounge," a game room, an outdoor tower "sky room," a sports court, and a guest suite. "It's a big house, but it never feels out of scale," says J. Robert White, a principal at Scheurer Architects, Newport Beach, Calif., and head of the design team. "As you move from room to room, ceiling heights vary, which keeps it at a human scale."

The sprawling plan also opens rooms to views and light. "A custom home that's a big box has all the glazing on the outside wall so the inside is dark," White says. "But this house has variation, so you can get light coming from two and three sides. You are always on the edge." White claims the plan is, nonetheless, highly adaptable to other lots and locales. Simply snip off some of those extra rooms and loggias, and the core remains a livable and viably affordable house to build. This version, meticulously crafted by Christopher Homes of Las Vegas, cost about $400 a foot. The house is currently on the market for $7.5 million.