If the Jetsons lived in a California ranch home, it might have some features like these:
Ten-foot doors that slide into the walls, opening the great room to the back deck. Windows that turn from clear glass to opaque with the click of a button. A touch-screen panel that pipes music through speakers throughout the house.
Meanwhile, robotics mop the floor, vacuum the carpets and mow the lawn, while George sips coffee and checks the stock market on what looks like a decorative ball.
Next week, the public will need go no further than Alamo to see for themselves how it all comes together at the first House of Innovation. (more…)
Some interior designers think of neutrals as comfortable, safe and soothing. Darryl Savage uses them for drop-dead dramatic effect.
“I get tired of color,” he says. “I love white. It’s very crisp. You can always change things up by adding flowers or pillows. Or add a little bit of black for punch.”
A decade ago, Savage’s parents bought a small 1950s rancher on the Severn River to use as a weekend house. They couldn’t have dreamed that when they sold it to their son after his divorce, he would transform the simple structure into a combination art gallery, stage set and rustic lake getaway. (more…)
What better symbols to conjure up nostalgia for a bygone day? But you never lived on a farm or had a garden. Maybe Mom couldn’t even cook.
When a wave of nostalgia for a slower, gentler, rural way of life washes over you, head out to the St. Joe Co.’s newest development off U.S. 27 at Williams Road and pretend the buggy’s pulling into White Fence Farms.
Planter’s Retreat, a 3,320-square-foot prototype home that incorporates rustic architectural ideas with the latest in high-tech convenience, is the 2006 Idea Home sponsored by St. Joe and Southern Living and Progressive Farmer magazines.
It is situated on Benjamin Chaires’ 1830s Verdura Plantation land, along with more than 50 other 3- to 15-acre homesites.
Frank Paris, development manager for St. Joe, says, “it’s all about the ‘new ruralism.’ We understand the folks who will live at White Fence Farms aren’t really going to grow crops and breed cattle; but they will love nature and being near to the land.” (more…)
