There are 10 examples; do you want an opinion for each one? The common problem with all of them is the overuse of developer/builder cliches for lack of a better term to describe this kind of odd fascination with front facing gables on big hipped roofs with arbitrary placement of materials and heavy-handed cornice returns..

I would say a good architect could make any of them great but the one that would need the least modification IMO is number 3. Numbers 4 and 9 also have promise.

I don't love any of them for the reasons JDS stated.

As others have said, none of these are particularly attractive. All have the similar "builder's subdivision" aesthetic, and look pretty much the same everywhere from Pennsylvania to Texas, except for the snow! I wish there was greater interest in architectural history...FWIW, in the days before air conditioning, houses and other buildings, had strong regional differences due to climate and topography. A New England house differed radically from a Tidewater Virginia house and one could see and appreciate the differences. Now, far too many houses look the same from coast to coast...

You might see whether you can find any subdivisions where the houses have detached garages.

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback!

I believe #1 and #12 are the only ones not designed by local architects. All homes are different builders and different architects.

JDS,
Are there any specific elements on 4 and 9 that you'd change?

Oaktown,
That was one of my next steps but I noticed they all look the same as well, but I'll have to go to the more affluent older areas to see more character.

Oh, if anyone has inspiration exteriors to share that would be appreciated!

Today's "architecture" seems to me to be slice-and-dice, as though bits of brisket on a cutting board. The vintage architecture, and classical, had a dominant, central visual. Sometimes it was symmetry. Sometimes it was a central bulk with a subserviant bulk or two to the side. But it had a core, and everything derived from the visual core. Today's designs seem to have no core, but are just a pile of slices of "features" that buyers seem to want.

For me, the starting point is visual bulk. Most modern plans have the garage volume dominating the visual bulk of the home, and dominating the entrance to the front main door (almost every one of your pictures is this case). If you do nothing else, pick a plan where the garage volume is not the preeminent volume of the structure.

Try for a recessed garage, where the house stands proud of the garage bulk.

Try to find a plan with a central core bulk, from which other parts LOGICALLY follow and are related, but do not co-dominate.

For example, in this 2013 subdivision, the majority of houses have detached or back-alley garages. (Site plan in linked slideshow)

Laurel Mews subdivision

Laurel Mews in Los Gatos, CA - 2014 Gold Nugget Home of the Year · More Info

speaktodeek,
Do you have any examples that have successfully recessed or integrated an attached garage?

Oaktown,
There are only detached garages with homes predominantly built before the 1950s around here (mainly craftsman and farm homes). Detached garages around here can significantly impact your home value though. Think about taking a car load of groceries across a cold, snowy, icy driveway especially when a home can shadow this area. It also eats up a significant part of your backyard so you just don't see them anymore.

No doubt I can see how the garage can impact the design.

I was more or less curious as my husband touts the architectural details of the home we are going to build (one of them is above) based on our budget. I then found our builder's projects on this site and the house we picked has more exterior saves than any other houzz exterior we've come across. Not that it means anything, just found it interesting and wanted to compare against random houses we saw driving around and the opinions of the members here.

And yes I did ask strangers who built their house and if they used an architect, lol.
Most where actually really nice and flattered that I asked.

I then found our builder's projects on this site and the house we picked has more exterior saves than any other houzz exterior we've come across. Not that it means anything, just found it interesting and wanted to compare against random houses we saw driving around and the opinions of the members here.

There's no accounting for taste. Too bad arts education programs have been cut in the last 30 years or so. Maybe if children were taught the basics of good and bad design, we wouldn't have quite as many of these mcmansion monstrosities.

So leftontheinside which house did you finally go with? Number 1 which none of the designers or architects could wrap their heads and eyes around? Or #3 which we all said was a bit better?

#4 seems generally OK but I would use double-hungs large enough for emergency escape from a bedroom or small awning windows and use rafters instead of trusses and omit the amateurish looking trim boards under the window sills. And use better colors for the siding or better yet use clear or stained shingles everywhere and I would bring the tapered columns to the porch floor to add a touch of elegance and originality the house is missing (I can show you some prebuilt ones if you are interested).

Do you really live where there are no trees?

I wouldn't want any of them based on the use of stone alone.

Of the images you posted, only #4 appeals to me at all.

#9 looks somewhat like this house that is very popular on Houzz (showing up on the first page of thumbnails for Exterior, All Time Popular):

Exterior · More Info

But there are many differences, for example: the roof line does not appear to be an exact match to the one in photo #9, the gables are steeper (looks like 14:12 where the one in photo #9 looks like a bit less on garage) and the cupola is more appropriately sized to my eye.

Exterior · More Info

Personally I don't care much for the way the house roof peeks up over the garage roof (viewed from garage side). Also, not sure what to think of how the gables intersect with the roof. Maybe it is supposed to be quirky/charming? I don't think it is bad; I do think it could be better.

Hope you are having fun!

Does #5 have a change in roof slope by the ridge of front gable? That looks like a kludge.

leftontheinside, I see we have some rather opinionated "architecture" folks weighing in on this. Of course people are saying #4 and #9 are the best, because, location being held equal, those two homes could easily be 1.5 to twice the cost of the others. We are building a home that is somewhat similar in feel, although not exactly like any that you've posted. Why must we continue to build homes exactly like the ones built 100 years ago? There's nothing wrong with a new aesthetic and for those who want a historic home, there are options for them, too. Build what YOU like. And for those who say I don't have an appreciation for architecture, I owned a condo in Mies Van Der Roh's first steel and glass high rise in Chicago for many years simply because I appreciated the beauty in the simplicity of the architecture. And now I'm ready for something different. Have fun choosing a home, leftontheinside.

Looks like Minnesota. Lots of homes like these around. I had one. Massive hipped roof. Front loading garage. Sticking a peak on a hipped roof just makes it worse, imo. Just say no to fake dormers.

So #4 seems like it might have some authenticity.

I would try for some simplicity and authenticity as opposed to the amassing of builders cliches.

#3 seems to have the materials proportions right.

Good luck!

PS - which is the Houzz popular one?

leftontheinside, I see we have some rather opinionated "architecture" folks weighing in on this

Or maybe after 20,30, or even 40 years designing homes and having advanced degrees in architecture, the architects have learned what is good design. And it has NOTHING to do with contemporary vs traditional design. It's the fact that these homes above pick 1 from column A and 2 from column B and mishmash them all into one home so that there's no focal point and no sense of what I would call composition. The architects probably have another word for it.

Even painters such as Jackson Pollack's drip paintings had an order to them.

Why must we continue to build homes exactly like the ones built 100 years ago? There's nothing wrong with a new aesthetic

I can show you dozens of homes in my town with a new aesthetic that are quite beautiful. Some are more traditional, some more transitional and some hark back to more traditional designs.

Build what YOU like. And for those who say I don't have an appreciation for architecture, I owned a condo in Mies Van Der Roh's first steel and glass high rise in Chicago for many years simply because I appreciated the beauty in the simplicity of the architecture.

My next comment is not to be snippy or nasty but it made me chuckle. Hope you can too when I say, "I too once stayed in a Holiday Inn". ;)

Seriously though, you learned to appreciate quality architecture. So what can be done to help others to learn to appreciate beautiful architecture?

The suggestion that anyone could accurately estimate the relative cost of these houses from a photograph is self-serving nonsense.

All of these buildings copy almost all of their design elements from the past but they assemble these elements based on cost savings, maximum profit and a false sense of grandeur rather than the cultural and esthetic ideas, principles and traditions of the originals. The central design considerations are now dictated by lightweight roof trusses, false repeating gables, unoccupied dormers and two story entrances. It is the rise of manufactured market driven culture that has driven people to look to the past for something familiar and dependable to hold on to. It isn't new; it started at the end of the Victorian era and generated the Shingle style, the Colonial Revival style, the Prairie style, the Craftsman style, etc and it has never stopped.

Re costs, I would have guessed that the first 7 houses would be cheaper to build than the last 6, assuming similar location/finishes -- in large part due to size. Curious as to what worthy and other builders think?

Beauty remains in the eye of the beholder. That said, there are eyes which evaluate beauty based on education, training and years of experience and eyes which use other criteria. Whatever works comfortably for you is probably a good strategy! But when one asks for an opinion, then all opinions should be respected.

I've read numerous comments on GW criticizing the dominance of garages in modern house designs. The solution always seems to be detaching the garage. The reality is that today's families can have more than just two cars. Unlike in my adolescence, each of today's teens seem to have their own vehicles, which get the privilege of parking on the driveway or on the street. Add to this situation, that the main two cars aren't even parked in the garage since its primary use is often storage. I think most modern house designs should accommodate a minimum of three cars and realistically, four. Combine this need for even more garage with typical 8,000 sq ft postage stamp lots and you pretty much have a situation where the garage will comprise over 1/3 of the main floor footprint and you still need to figure out how three to four cars will get into the garages.

In "Designing Your Perfect House: Lessons from an Architect" by William Hirsch, he states that the garage is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. He starts his designs with the garage and then the design flows from there.

All but 2 of the houses posted in this thread did a good job of concealing the garage. Yet, none of these could be built on an 8,000 sq ft lot, unless it was a corner lot.

I'd like to see the pros on this board share concrete examples of houses with numerous garages that they feel are elegantly integrated into the design while still maintaining good architectural balance.

Enough to make me swear off gables--let alone the double gables run rampant in North American eclectic design--anywhere anytime! When I've had the "pleasure" to live in a home with gables, they usually had to be pigeon proofed with chicken wire.

House below has multi-car parking below grade--driveway down the left side.:-)

Or, as in one of Hulk Hogan's previous homes, which reads like the corner of an old English village, the garage just blends into the streetscape.

All, thanks for the feedback!

The biggest challenge has been finding a ranch that has an attached 3 car garage. After getting some feedback on the first one I started to look at things a bit differently.

My husband has many architectural contacts that do commercial work and he said they all mentioned the same thing...integrating a 3 car garage into a ranch is very difficult (especially for many of the developments that require a side entry).

I too would love to see examples of an attached 3 car garage integrated into a ranch and not the million dollar mansions above, lol.

^ Google Cliff May, Joseph Eichler, and Royal Barry Wills, using "images." Lots of examples.

Where we live, there are many, many one-story ranches on 8000+/- ft2 lots. On the interior lots, we typically see front loaded garages (integrated e.g. Eichlers or projecting), forecourt garages, or detached garage in back of the house. I usually think the projecting front-load garages are the least attractive.

It really is a matter of priorities -- what is important to the residents? Plenty of folks in our area use their garages only for storage, so here there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason why would it need to be attached to the house? Elsewhere, it is great to keep the ice off your windshield and stay out of the worst of the elements in the winter. Maybe in some areas one might prefer a carport that also could be used as a covered patio for outdoor parties? No one size fits all.

I think the garages are very obvious on all the 13 houses shown, but that's just me.

Here are some different examples of single-story homes that I personally think have well-done attached garages. The Eichlers are expensive now due to location but were originally build as affordable mass housing. I know others will have different tastes!

Double Gable Eichler Remodel · More Info

eichler in marinwood · More Info

Eichler Renovation · More Info

Chimney Corners · More Info

Front Elevation of Contemporary European Farmhouse in White Stucco Metal Roof · More Info

Spring Lane House · More Info

Black House (Steinman Renovation) · More Info

Butterfly House · More Info

Modern Farmhouse in Dallas, Texas · More Info

What was the purpose of this thread if the intent is to build a ranch with an attached 3 car garage? And why are the houses originally posted now laughable? Are there two people posting under the same name?

Hello JDS,

I more or less wanted to get feedback on the desirability of the exteriors as overall concepts. The home I originally wanted was ripped to shreds and my husband didn't really like it after seeing others so I moved on. The house my husband ultimately wanted was not my top choice but it made sense based on the feedback I've received from this forum. Out of curiosity I wanted to see how the exteriors aligned with the general public. Its tough to get criticism from family and friends.

They where all homes we considered building or used as inspiration either with materials, colors or overall design.

1-9 are ranches with attached 3 car garages.

I don't think any of them are laughable. Hopefully I didn't convey that. As Virgil mentioned I respect everyone's opinion and their choices.

Perhaps the confusion is that none of the examples posted is a Ranch Style house; they are all eclectic arbitrary combinations of elements of the Shingle, Colonial Revival, Craftsman and Prairie styles.

"The Ranch Style home, also known as the rancher or the rambler, originated here in the United States and is known for its short stature and minimal exterior decoration. It is typically only one story tall and is usually either an asymmetrical rectangle or an ‘L’ shape. Ranch homes are generally found in warmer areas as their iconic short roofs aren’t very good at dealing with a heavy snowfall."

We're building a house with a 3 car garage because our HOA doesn't allow storage sheds. We looked at putting 1-2 of the garage spaces below the rest of the house (I didn't want my space below grade.) but it turns out it was cost prohibitive and there were concerns about flooding because the rest of house would be elevated just outside a 1,000 year flood plain. Flooding is very doubtful but my architect is being very conservative.