All you have to do is flip on HGTV or scroll through an online home design site to see how dramatically home architectural styles vary from one part of the country to another.
For instance, Spanish-style stucco houses with red tile roofs are more common in the Napa Valley or in Florida than in the Washington area, with climate, culture and history often playing a big part.
“In the Carolinas you see more houses with double front doors, and in Texas you see a lot of houses with a casita, which is a separate little detached guesthouse,” said Dennis Kelleher, division president of Comstock Homes of Washington, in Reston, Va.
Tim Gehman, director of design for Toll Brothers home builders in Philadelphia, said even some seemingly minor interior layout preferences such as the location of the master bedroom closet are driven by regional preferences. He said in Washington and north of this area, walk-in closets tend to be a separate entity entered directly from the master bedroom, while in the Carolinas and south of that area, closets are entered through the master bathroom.
More and more, though, such distinctions are fading. Home builders, sometimes driven by buyer demands, are introducing regional styles into their designs throughout the country in markets well beyond the places where they originated.
“One of the trends from the West Coast that has spread east is the open flow between a courtyard and the great room,” said Damon Bradley, sales manager with Williamsburg Homes in Maryland. “Homes in the eastern part of the country used to be much more formal.”
If you’re planning to buy a newly constructed home in the near future, expect to see more indoor-outdoor rooms, more storage, more bathrooms with small tubs and larger showers, more informal areas and fewer formal ones. Many of these ideas proved to be popular in other parts of the country.
“Houses don’t change like hemlines, but over the last few years, trends have spread faster due to the availability of online sites like Houzz and Pinterest,” Gehman said.
A major national trend that continues to expand in influence is the interest in an informal lifestyle focused on entertaining in the open kitchen and extending into the outdoors, said Kermit Baker, chief economist of the American Institute of Architects in Washington. Nearly all newly designed houses today have more floor space devoted to casual living areas rather than a formal living room and formal dining room.
“Millennials, in particular, don’t want space dedicated to formal living and that crosses over into other generations, too,” said Baker.
While the Washington region has long been known for its traditional homes, Matthew Ossolinski, principal of Ossolinski Architects in the District, said that home buyers in the national capital area are embracing informality, even if they prefer a traditional exterior.
“Even when home buyers want a formal dining room, it tends to be more open to the other living areas,” Ossolinski said. “Interior walls are dematerializing, with rooms defined by glass doors or columns or completely open to each other.”
Gehman said home buyers’ tastes in the Washington region have changed to embrace what he calls “East-West” living common in Florida houses, with the kitchen, breakfast area and family room spread out in one big space across the back of the main level.
“Even the small definitions between spaces have gone away, such as a railing or a step-down between those rooms,” he said.
Ossolinski said that embracing open floor plans extends to allowing more flow between interior and exterior spaces.
“Homeowners like the look of an open living and dining area and kitchen with a minimal threshold and minimal walls separating those spaces from their outdoor space,” he said. “Those outdoor spaces have changed, too, and look more like interior space with a kitchen with a counter and furnishings that are visually connected to the indoor furniture.”
At Toll Brothers, covered outdoor living areas called a “California room” or a “lanai” in different markets, often accessible through accordion-style glass doors, are being offered everywhere the company builds homes.
“These outdoor living rooms expand the usable living space and create a sense of privacy because they are at least partially covered,” Gehman said. “These are standard in our homes in California and Florida, but they are also very popular options in the D.C. region.”
Kelleher said that every one of Comstock’s new floor plans for single-family houses includes a covered outdoor area such as a screened porch or covered porch as a standard feature. Buyers can customize these spaces with stone walls, a fireplace and a beamed ceiling.
As Americans live longer and the baby-boom generation ages, builders are recognizing the increased need for houses that make it easy to age-in-place. At the same time, more people are living in multigenerational households, which also influences how houses are designed.