Custom-home showcases tend to mirror overbuilt luxury. Builders and designers trot out their finest craftsmanship and the latest in trends and materials in an effort to lure business and industry accolades.
But in a move that signals a shift away from the “bigger is better” aesthetic, this year’s Parade of Homes participants took cues from Sarah Susanka’s popular “No So Big House” books. That meant forging character and comfort without simply flexing copious square footage.
The event starts Saturday and runs through Labor Day. Organizers anticipate the Parade will draw about 90,000 people to Southshore, a new development near E-470 and Smoky Hill Road that overlooks the Aurora Reservoir. Water views are golden in high and dry Colorado, so this year’s homes were themed around shoreline living.
Southshore general manager Susan Peterson says the “Not So Big” guidelines challenged builders to rethink how living space is used. The result?: “Our Parade beautifully intertwines thoughtful design and our waterside location,” she says.
During a recent tour of the 2007 Parade of Homes, Susanka said so many of the homes built in the past 20 to 30 years were “intended to look showy, but there’s a whole segment of the population who don’t live that way.”
Access to panoramic views helped the building teams adapt Susanka’s cozy architectural design to their own visions of Colorado luxury. Susanka toured the houses just as they were polishing doorknobs and soaking new landscaping.
“I’ve been talking about this for years, but to see it now becoming part of the mass market is really, really thrilling,” said the Minneapolis-based architect who has a slight British accent and a gentle manner. She first outlined her philosophy in 1998’s “The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live.” It spawned such subsequent titles as “Inside the Not So Big House,” and her latest, “The Not So Big Life.”
“People are realizing that it’s not about size … (and) it’s not about the neighbors,” she said. “It’s about you. If you feel at home, your friends will feel at home.”
Lower ceilings, directional lighting, interplay with the outdoors, and private spaces or “away rooms” for everyone in the family – not just the kids – characterize some of Susanka’s “Not So Big” tricks. The Parade of Homes builders were restricted to an above-grade building limit of 3,800 square feet. That might be palatial to most folks, but among the extravagance literally on parade at a home-building showcase, it reflected restraint.
First stop on Susanka’s tour: A house dubbed “Celebrations,” by Remarc Homes, where a yard overlooking the water was set for a wedding. Remarc principal Debra Cramer’s team envisioned a coastal-inspired entertainment oasis spotlighting a blue-green palette, several covered porches, and plenty of places to sit and stare at the reservoir. “I call that a Zen view,” Susanka said of these restful nooks.
At “The Boat House,” Hollyberry Homes’ updated saltbox with a stacked gazebo facing the water, Susanka found plenty of “light to walk toward.” Company founder Kevin Albright stressed that the house is mold- and bug-free because it was framed using treated BluWood, a building product treated to protect agains fungus and wood-destroying insects. But it was the lines of the house that struck Susanka.
“In this house you’re being drawn from one place to another,” she said. “The ceiling height and the lighting tell you where to go.”
She noted a different vibe at the house Steve Philpott and Rocky Mountain Custom Homes named “Montauk Point @ Southshore.” This company, known for its cushy contemporary outlook, aimed to create a Hamptons- style home. Its traditional take on a great room was too spacious for the “Not So Big” architect. But she cooed over its fabric walls, louver doors, and smoothed-stone spa benches.
John Laing Homes built the smallest house in the Parade and called it “Trade Winds.” Contiguous stone floors and a series of pocket doors connect this home’s indoor and outdoor rooms.
Her tour concluded at “The Shore House,” by Village Homes, the property that this year garnered the most Parade of Homes awards. Susanka loved the artist’s loft at the front of the house, the subtle stenciling on the floors, stairs and walls, and the “yummy!” master bathroom where a floor-to-ceiling fountain trickled near a see-through fireplace and a great big tub. “This,” she said, “takes the cake.”
Room editor Elana Ashanti Jefferson can be reached at 303-954-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com.
