With Nods to History, 'New American Home' Pushes Forward in Design

You can't learn much in the dark.

I was reminded of this at the International Builders' Show in Orlando last month when I visited the New American Home for the second time, this time in broad daylight. When I saw this show house of builder ideas the night before, I could discern a highly unusual exterior, a stark aesthetic and an unconventional floor plan. But all the things that make this house a winner -- its colors, materials, details and the effect of interiors drenched in daylight -- were invisible. So was the charming neighborhood.

It is a historic district where many of the houses are more than 100 years old. The streets are lined with ancient-looking trees draped in Spanish moss and an eclectic mix of charming Craftsman-style bungalows, nondescript cottages and surreal, small-scale Tara wannabes with towering columns and Canary Island date palms. The area is close to Lake Eola and is a 10-minute walk from downtown Orlando, itself a startling surprise with many high-rise condominiums and office towers.

The New American Home is on the edge of this historic district, across the street from two nondescript, 25-year-old buildings, one a seven-story condo and the other an eight-story office block. Sandwiched between the very old and the barely old, the site presented the architect, Ed Binkley of BSB Design in Oviedo, Fla., with an unusual challenge. To satisfy the local historic preservation committee, the design had to speak to the past. To fit into the neighborhood, the design had to acknowledge the newer structures.

Binkley did both and produced an unexpected result. The nod to the nearby bungalow-style houses passed muster with the historic preservation police. But this design has a stronger historic connection to two American giants of the last century who were always pushing the envelope, Frank Lloyd Wright and Paul Rudolph. Like them, Binkley used traditional materials -- clapboard siding, brick, stucco and wood -- to create a new look. But where Wright's houses tended to emphasize the horizontal and hug the earth, Binkley's reaches up.

With Rudolph's Sarasota houses that were built from the 1940s to the 1960s, he often showcased the supports for the roof on the exterior. Binkley does the same thing here with his enormous exterior cedar brackets that appear to support the upper stories.

The long, narrow, 4,700-square-foot, three-story house sits on a corner lot. The most prominent features are three wide green bands that run around three sides of the building, marking each floor level, and the very large, exposed cedar brackets on the two sides that face the intersection. A brick retaining wall that meets the sidewalk raises the house and yard about four feet, high enough to say "this house is different" but low enough to also say "the people who live here are friendly."

The decorative green bands are functional -- they're cantilevered planter boxes that shade the windows below and form part of an elaborate stormwater management system. But, I later learned, the prominent cedar brackets are a decorative flourish, not a structural necessity. Adding an edgy urban touch, the balcony railings are stainless steel cables.

With such an unusual exterior, expect an unusual interior. For starters, the floor plan is organized in reverse. The eat-in kitchen/family room is on the top floor; the second floor is entirely given over to a master suite; and the ground floor includes a home theater, two bedrooms and an entry foyer that does double duty as a home office.

Recognizing that no homeowner will want to carry groceries up two flights of stairs to the third-floor kitchen, Binkley included an elevator.

The interior finishes also are unexpected. The interior walls are exposed concrete with a water-based, vertical drip mural in the entry foyer and stairwell. (Imagine Jackson Pollock painting on a wall -- all the lines of color would flow downward.) A bridge in the two-story foyer that connects the second-floor hall to a small balcony is made of glass block.

The eat-in kitchen/family room is a big concrete box ringed with windows on four sides that drench it in natural light and soften its industrial look.