Two Houses, Two Visions

Then there was the media component.

The New American Home featured 11 televisions so that people could watch while they bathe, cook or do laundry.

The Katrina cottage, on the other hand, had no built-in televisions. Instead, it's a bring-your-own-set kind of thing, if you have one.

On the trade-show floor, television screens were abundant. Whirlpool even displayed a prototype microwave with a TV screen on the front of the door, so that consumers need not miss a single precious moment of their favorite shows as they zap their fast-cooking meals.

Big-screen viewing, meanwhile, has gone from a luxury to a necessity for some homeowners. Several builders from South Carolina, for example, said buyers there want these high-tech amenities more than before, even if they have to pay for them with borrowed money on credit cards or with 100 percent mortgage financing.

"If you build a house without a home theater system -- prewired with speakers -- it won't sell," said builder Kent Miller of Spartanburg.

Conflicting visions of American life were apparent at the show in other ways, as well. For example, with energy prices rising, products that save consumers money on electricity or heating bills drew much attention. David Rodgers, program manager for the Building Technologies Program at the U.S. Department of Energy, who attended the show to talk about government efforts to boost energy efficiency, said calls by builders to his office have tripled since last year, with a particularly sharp spike in requests for information that started in the fall.

"One of the key audiences we are reaching out to are builders," Rodgers said.

And the New American Home is the first National Association of Home Builders showcase house to be a certified green home, meaning it meets certain standards of environmental friendliness. Among the energy-saving features are double-paned glass doors with special glazing on the glass to reduce solar heat in the summer and weatherstripping to keep cold air inside in the summer and outside in the winter.

But even as they seek ways to save energy, Americans are looking at new ways to expend it, as well. Even at a time of growing awareness of the high cost of energy, consumers are looking to buy more and more products that consume electricity in new ways. Instead of having just one refrigerator, for example, people could purchase a set of refrigerators or a set of freezers, from a new product line by Thermador. The company calls these movable cooling devices refrigeration columns, and they can be placed at various locations around a home rather than just in the kitchen. Instead of a single icebox, Thermador customers can buy two or three or four, at prices ranging from $2,699 to $6,699 per unit.

Home elevators are another kind of electrical device more people are seeking to buy. Rather than move to single-level houses, as senior citizens have done in the past, aging baby boomers with bad knees or older homeowners with disabilities increasingly want to remain in their own multi-level houses, even though they may have been built with younger and more agile residents in mind. Many builders today are placing elevators in new houses or leaving an adaptable space, such as an extra-large closet, that can be converted into a shaft for a future elevator.

At Waupaca Elevator Co., a Wisconsin-based manufacturer, home elevator sales rose 20 percent in 2005, on top of a 20 percent rise in 2004, said Stacie Sorenson, the firm's marketing director. Some people are buying them for need and some for convenience, she said. She said they cost in the $20,000s, or about the same price as a mid-size car.

Sales keep "jumping and jumping and jumping," Sorenson said. "Home elevators are becoming like the automatic garage-door openers of the 1970s. Everyone could lift the door, but it is so much easier to sit in the car."

So it all goes back to the core question: Is less more, or is more, well, more?