New Home in Montford
This project is a new home built on a vacant site in the Montford Historic District in Asheville. New houses in the Historic District are required to fit with the scale and context of the older, existing neighborhood by using similar materials, details and shapes in their design.
Most of the houses in the neighborhood were built in the early 1900s in a local interpretation of the Arts and Crafts style. The exterior design of this house borrows from that tradition with highly detailed wood bracketing, wood shake siding, and stone column bases; but the interior of the home has a more contemporary, open-floor plan the flows out to a gracious outdoor living space in the back - the owner really wanted to create a home that was both comfortable for daily living and fun for entertaining.
Part of the reason the owner chose to build this new house was the site’s close proximity to downtown, but she also wanted to have a more energy efficient and “green” home. So, we incorporated indigenous stone, locally-made cabinets and doors and locally-milled, figured maple floors and trim. One local artisan created the cast concrete sinks, concrete kitchen counters and the concrete fireplace hearth; a local metal artist built the stair rail and metal brackets supporting the bar top; and the bar top itself is made from a walnut slab the contractor removed from another job-site. And, the house was designed to be energy efficient and has been certified as an Energy Star home.
