Not bad. I assume the shape of the lot is dictating the shape of the house.

If there's one thing that stands out it's the roof line. I'm not getting "Mediterranean."

Like the first 2 photos vs. The 3rd. It's not bad, but it's reading more neo-eclectic.

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Thank you jn3344...that was a great observation! Should we make the roof more low-pitched? We had originally agreed with the architect that a low-pitched roof would give it a more modern feel. But comparing the pictures shows that the roof is still a bit high pitched.

We are planning to have the house done in stucco with stone accent and clay roof tiles

Who designed this for you? Where is this house?

Our architect designed the house. The house will be custom built in Dallas, TX

What is the purpose of that quarter round tower?

What is the focal point of the house when you look at it? When I look at the house the first thing I see is the garage. After that my eye is jumping from one thing to another because you have so many disparate elements on the exterior. I count no less than 6 different window styles.

Also do you really need a formal living room, a family room and a game room? Especially since the living room is rather small in scale for the rest of the house?

Do you need the dining nook and the dining room? Especially since the dining room is small in scale for the size of the rest of the house?

Overall I see a house with lots of wasted space. I also see some rooms that are oversized for their functions and others that are too small for their functions. Take just one other example. Your master closet is only 5'4 1/2" wide! You're building this large home and you have a closet you can just barely walk into?

Same with your master bath. There seems to be only a minimum of walk room in there. I'm not a fan of huge bathrooms, but compared to your other rooms it doesn't make sense.

Save your money when thinking about a software program (unless you are an experienced architect) and talk to your "architect". Ask for a better proportioned exterior, with fewer diverse shapes, and greater unity, including fenestration which better fits the design of the house, as opposed to simply placing windows in the exterior walls of each room in a random manner.

If you want to really improve the design, move the garage so that it doesn't face the front elevation of the house. At the very least, change the scale-busting double door to two smaller single doors.

PS: You're paying a lot of money for that winding stair and double height entry.

Well, I think the question was about the exterior.

The tiles will help give it a "Mediterranean" feel but ultimately the roof is what you would find on any house in any neighborhood.

Do you have to go with so much roof area? Yes, a lower pitch might help. And square them up like in photo 1.

I think your roof pitch is off for the style you are going for. I don't understand the 'roof' section that is above the garage doors.

Adding the wood detail under the roof (can't remember what that's called?) might help give it more of the feel you are going for.

I'd also do 2 single garage doors instead of 1 double, to break it up. I kind of like how this house mixed in the arches, not sure if that would work with yours or not.

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Are you sure you worked with a licensed architect and not a designer? I ask because this seems more like a design we see here over and over from "designers" (aka draftsman) as opposed to architects.

You cannot evaluate the exterior by looking at an elevation. Ask your Architect for color 3D renderings.

The house shows none of the detailing typically found on a Mediterranean style house.

As is, it looks like many other uninspired houses with a bit of stone added in an attempt to create "interest".

Like so many houses, it seems the exterior was simply applied over the interior, instead of being an integral part of the design process.

What's your interpretation of "modern Mediterranean"?

"Modern Mediterranean" is evidently what you make it--from the formal thought out use of Mediterranean forms and fenestration to bits 'n pieces mixed up with half a dozen other styles to create the overriding choice of contemporary North Americans: Neo-eclectic.

As mentioned above, stucco, stone and a low-pitched tile roof will fit the bill of modern Mediterranean, a la Texas. The 18 corners and wonderfully complex roof place it firmly in that modern tradition.

@ cpaartist:

1-The quarter round tower is a loft area in the game room. The game room will be floored to be a mini basketball/squash court. It will be double story so the loft area above will have a tv/video games. Under the loft will serve as a play area for my girls.

2-Im assuming the focal point of most houses will be the entrance?

3-We have 7 children and a large extended family. Yes, a formal living, dining, family and game room are all important for our family. The formal living and dining are actually a lot bigger than most in Dallas. The dimensions work well for what we are intending to use them for.

4-My husband and I are both minimalist when it comes to clothing/closet space. Our current closet is even smaller but serves our purpose well.

5-We don't intend to lounge around the bathroom...i'd actually prefer less area to clean.

@Virgil Carter Fine Art: We originally wanted to move the garage to the back of the house. However, this shaved off close to 8' of the entire side of the house to accomodate a long driveway to get to the back. It just wasn't working well and ended up shrinking the size of the rooms.

We had also had the double doors for the garage and we did like that look better, but we have a massive vehicle. We were worried, it might be too tight to pull the car in and out of a single garage door.

Almost 95% of the homes in our community have double height entry and round staircase...It's not a tremendous addition cost wise but does add value to the house.

@ Summye...yeah, you're right. The pitch was bothering me too. It's currently at 6.12, which is in the middle. We will ask to bring it down to about 4.

Yes we will be adding a wood soffit under the overhang of the roof with lights. That's exactly what we were thinking!

We had also had the double doors for the garage and we did like that look better, but we have a massive vehicle. We were worried, it might be too tight to pull the car in and out of a single garage door, so we asked her to change it to a double door. The roof above the garage door was just so that we break up the look and add dimension to the house a bit. But I'm not sure if its working well.

@cpaartist: yes, she is a licensed architect. We did give a lot of input on how we needed the house inside. But we are struggling with the elevation.

@PPF...you are very correct. We did work on the floor plan before working on the elevation. Because of the strange shaped lot, we hit many limitations so we wanted the house to work well inside first. Hence our struggle now with the elevation.

This is a 3D rendering before we made a few changes

@palimpset: Those are really interesting ways to accomodate our lot shape. Thanks for your suggestions!

I understand how this would upset the plan, but just looking at your setbacks, and thinking mostly about the garage -- both access and visual, my first thought would be this.

You could have double doors, and the garage would appear subordinate to the house.

if you have to have the single garage door on the front. I would try to make the door really nice.

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@ PPF...Wow, that does make a lot more sense!

@ Summye...yup, we are in a hunt for a really nice door. That looks really nice too. But now i'm really thinking about PPF's suggestion

I asked because there seems to be no rhyme or reason regarding placement of windows etc. and the rooms itself seem to have been pasted on versus being designed as a whole.

1-The quarter round tower is a loft area in the game room. The game room will be floored to be a mini basketball/squash court. It will be double story so the loft area above will have a tv/video games. Under the loft will serve as a play area for my girls.

Honestly it appears to be just stuck onto the front of the house and not well thought out.

2-Im assuming the focal point of most houses will be the entrance?

Yes it should be but it's not on your house. Your garage is the first thing you see, not your entrance. And then you have all these different materials on the house along with different window sizes and styles that all compete for attention.

Do an experiment with both the 3D rendering and with the elevation drawing. Close your eyes. Then look at the drawing. What do you see first?

When I do that experiment on the elevation drawing the first thing I see is the garage. The second thing I see is that large incongruous window by the stairway by the rotunda. That window has no relationship to any of the other windows in the house. And neither does the one to the left of it.

When I look at your 3D rendering the first things I see are the same two things. Then I see the taupe painted wall that sticks out

3-The formal living and dining are actually a lot bigger than most in Dallas. The dimensions work well for what we are intending to use them for.

The two rooms are long but rather narrow.

4-My husband and I are both minimalist when it comes to clothing/closet space. Our current closet is even smaller but serves our purpose well.

Minimalist is one thing but having a long narrow space with room only on one side for clothes is less than minimal for the size of your house. It will feel like going in a dark tunnel every time you go to the end of the closet.

5-We don't intend to lounge around the bathroom...i'd actually prefer less area to clean.

Ok so how wide is your aisles in there? If cleaning bathrooms is such a big deal then why does every bedroom need its own bathroom? You have 5 full bathrooms upstairs yet downstairs anyone who is in the kitchen and needs the bathroom has to walk through the whole house to get to the half bath.

Another thought. You have 7 children but only a 2 car garage? I'm not a fan of large garages by any means and most times think they're useless, but I'm wondering what happens when the kids start driving?

It just wasn't working well and ended up shrinking the size of the rooms.

Honestly if the house were laid out better, you could have both the side driveway and the large rooms. However, what we're all trying to tell you is this house is not well laid out.

Almost 95% of the homes in our community have double height entry and round staircase...It's not a tremendous addition cost wise but does add value to the house.

And are they selling as resales or is this all new builds? If resales, then yes, you need to follow what your neighborhood does but you can certainly make it work with a well thought out design.

However if it's a new neighborhood then why would you need to follow what everyone else is doing?

But we are struggling with the elevation.

You are struggling with the elevation because the house wasn't designed as a whole. You don't design the interior of a house and then stick a facade on it. Both need to work together throughout the process.

Did your architect sit down with you in the beginning and do sketching while you told her what you liked and didn't like? Did she first give you rough sketches? Or was everything done in CAD? Did you do a bubble diagram to start?

I'm going to be blunt. I think you can do a heck of a lot better. This looks too much like a McMansion. :(

Another way would be to run one wing parallel with the lot line, simplifying the exterior elevation. The roof would be far simpler as well.

If you like the round tower, one would fit at the front containing a circular stair.

I know you said you are happy with the interior but that is one long haul to bring groceries in from the garage to your pantry.

To understand vinmarks point here is a diagram showing it:

The red line is coming in from your garage carrying groceries and putting them away in your pantry and fridge.

The blue line is what I alluded to earlier about how the only powder room is clear across the house from the public spaces. Look at the path needed to get to the bathroom from the different public rooms in the house. Also notice how they all go right through the family room?

And with 7 children and frequent guests, what happens when more than one person needs to use the facilities in this large, awkward house? Do they have to run upstairs using one of the three staircases to get to one of the kids bathrooms? Or is the guest bedroom downstairs available?

Additionally in bedroom 2 there is no way anyone can get into that closet the way it's drawn.

And lastly, what is the purple circled area in the upper right for? And why would you want to come out of your bathroom, walk through your bedroom, into the alcove to get to the master closet? Normally the two rooms work in tandem so you can go from one to the other when showering, or undressing, etc.

@cpaartist, there is a powder bath across the dining room. I do realize that it's a long haul to the laundry room...we are planning to get the wheeled laundry baskets to make it a little easier. The purple area that you have circled in the master bedroom is a small area for a desk for some light paperwork.

I'd love to see a floor plan and elevation that you feel works really well for comparison. I think bc I've invested so much time into the floor plan, I can see how it'll work. But I understand how it looks off to a fresh eye.

Did a licensed architect design this home? I personally would not want the garage as a focal point to the house. The master closet is much too small for a house this size.

dihulhaq, I'm fascinated by the idea of a basketball/squash court combination! How will this work? I ask as I have a 17 yr old grandson who is a squash player (hoping to play in college) and I can't picture how this will work. Glass walls? Squash balls are REALLY hard - even soft ones - and they make horrific marks on the walls of squash courts, usually built out of concrete block.

I understand that you and your husband are not into huge closets, filled to the brim with enough clothes to outfit multiple families for decades. But most people buying a large house are like that, and for resale value, you might want to reconsider. They also want baths big enough to entertain in. I think they are ridiculous, but I might want a happy medium.

When one builds or remodels, one should always get what one wants. But one cannot totally disregard resale - life has a way of changing in the most unpredictable ways. What a buyer might expect in a house in a particular neighborhood really must be taken into account. For instance, when we had an apt in a faculty apt in Maine, we put in a Vermont slate kitchen floor. With as many as 5 dogs living with us up there, and snowy winters, it was marvelous - best floor I've ever had. When we decided to redo the kitchen floor in our KY home, I called a neighborhood realtor who lived in my neighborhood and knew it better than anyone and asked her about this. She told me that in my area, buyers expect hardwood floors. I'd had that before, too, and it worked well with multiple dogs and cats, so that's what we did. We still got something we liked but we didn't put something in that would have been difficult and expensive to change to a buyer's taste someday. It's a balancing act.

@PPF., if we angled the garage along the wing line, would it shift the focal point to the entrance? Will it look too crowded?

This is Italian Renaissance Revival, so I suppose it's Tyrrhenian not Mediterranean. This house was designed by Frank Miles Day and I show this because of the Porte Cochere. You probably don't have the room to do a full-on porte cochere and loggia with the garage down the side, but I was wondering if you could spare a little room to submerge the garage doors a bit underneath a recessed porch in the the style of a porte cochere. Keep it up front but sacrifice 8 or 10 feet through an archway to make it less prominent.

if we angled the garage along the wing line, would it shift the focal point to the entrance? Will it look too crowded?

I don't believe it would fit. It would also look odd being the only space set at an angle.

The garage by itself isn't the issue.

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The garage is visually in the center instead of being to one side, or behind.

The look of the house is discontinuous.

You are trying to fit 5 pounds of house onto a 4 pound lot.

The elevation looks like 5 different houses, one behind the other, not one large well proportioned house. Elevations are deceiving, but should look OK.

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Why not gather up some inspiration photos -- plenty here on houzz, and give your Architect another chance.

Do you think it would look better if we made the roof above the garage like an inverted "V" instead of straight like in the pic below?

Also, @cpartist, you mentioned that the windows are all different in our elevation. Typically should they all be uniform?

The best plans are usually organized around simple circulation. Your circulation paths look like the white squares in a crossword puzzle.

Agree with PPF. Huddle up with your architect and go "back to the drawing board".

cpartist, you mentioned that the windows are all different in our elevation. Typically should they all be uniform?

Hopefully a picture is worth a thousand words. It doesn't matter the style of house, overall you still want to have consistency and repetition.

Here are the different windows on your front elevation. Notice how they have no consistency in overall feel and the proportions are different on each window? Some are long and narrow. Others are short and wide. Some have vertical panes, while others have horizontal panes:

Notice the windows share similar proportions and a consistent feel. And notice how even the square windows over the front porch, while a different "style" still are in keeping with the overall feel of the other windows?

Keeping the window styles and proportions similar helps in balancing the look of the house.

There is an excellent book that helped me when I designed my house and I recommend it frequently on here. I highly recommend reading it before going back to your architect. It's called What Not To Build

The varying window sizes and other features of the house plan are perfectly consistent with its broad styling of Millennium Mansion, as described in the Field Guide to American Houses.

Worthy, although I usually like early 20th c. _____-revival houses, I find the Tudor element of the entry and gable above essentially tacked onto an Italian Renaissance revival house pretty unattractive. It could have been a much better looking house if they had not stuck the Tudor thing on the front.

Here is the plan of one of the houses I posted. It's a bit complex on the lower right, but that's because this house was designed for a number of servants and there is a separation between "front of the house" and "back of the house"--and the service and servants' wings are a bit convoluted.

However, for a house built in the twenties it has a number of things people are doing today such as a double height entry hall with balcony, and butler's pantry, dressing rooms, and many bathrooms. But despite the house being smaller than yours and having 6 bedrooms plus a sleeping porch, there is a fairly straight forward circulation pattern, excluding the old-fashioned service-style kitchen area.

What if you went full-on Mediterranean and had the house present a wall to the street? Garage doors on one side and a Gated court Entry and a Tower to signify the house behind the wall.

There are many nice houses in coastal California (and in Texas) that present pretty much of a blank facade to the street that are very open on the private side of the house. It can be done well.

Here's another significant 1920s Dallas home similarly mixing different styles and window shapes.

And another Dallas home of the era in a consciously Spanish Colonial Revival style, including the domed cylinder, likely including stairs, but without the endless jigs and jogs of the OP's home.

Exactly the same things palimpsest and PFF have suggested above.

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OT: Love the three maid's rooms! In grad school, I boarded for a while in a much faded and tattered Gold Coast mini-mansion. Once, I slipped onto the long deserted third floor, which consisted of at least six servant's rooms.

Ahh, Spanish style homes! There's so many choices to draw from: Spanish Colonial, Colonial Revival, Mission, Spanish Eclectic, Monterey, Pueblo Revival, etc. Even Italian Renaissance. And then there's Neo-Mediterranean, one of the Neoeclectic derivatives. ...Whew!

The formal living room will not be used very often. I'd like to have it a bit separate from the rest of the business of the house for a few reasons:

1-my husband sometimes has informal board meetings for non-profit organizations at the house.

2-my MIL stays with us for around 6-7 months every year and it's a nice place for her to sit and have tea with her friends

3-dads usually retreat to the formal living during gatherings when they want to have their serious discussions (ie: sports, politics etc...)

The dining room is used mostly for:

1-older kids HW

2-projects

3-formal dinner parties

So I don't really mind if these 2 areas aren't well-integrated with the rest of the house. The major bustling will be from the garage to family room, kitchen, game room, stairs and bedrooms. I also wanted the kitchen to be in the corner of the house so that I could open windows and air out after cooking.

Also, we have a 15' easement in our backyard so we needed to pull the pool into the building line so that we could build a pool enclosure around it.

My 4 daughters will have the 2 bedrooms to the left of the house and my 3 sons will have the 2 bedrooms at the center front of the house, and our master bedroom tucked away in the corner back.

So this is how the floor plan played out keeping all those factors in mind.

Lol! Virgil Carter Fine Art :)

In both your examples Worthy, they mix two styles, not 6 and the windows all have the overall same geometric relationship. Thank you for proving my point in both cases.

@palimpsest...ooh...that would be magnificent! but I don't think the HOA would allow a walled off entry unfortunately :(

This is similar to the look we are going for...but we would do lighter colored stucco with darker brown roof and maybe warmer wood doors. I feel like the elevation works well even though there are a few different things going on .

Ok do the same exercise with the photo you posted. What's the first thing you see? It's not the front door. It's that oversized pseudo balcony window and door between the garage and the front door. It's taller even than the front door! It's unbalanced.

I'd simplify the roof. It's complicated right now, and not necessarily nice so, what's the purpose?

I would not go with skew walls.

This sketch shows slightly more area than what you have in your plan (about 140 sf larger, so there is room for shaping it as needed to get the elevation you want. the dashed line is what appears to be the construction line on your plan. I did not show the pool but it fits.