William R. Hoppé & Associates
Your GardenHome Architects
Custom Designers of Homes Embraced by "Livable" Gardens

Living in a
"GardenHome"
is like living
a dream come true!

Beauty, Livability, & Quality ...
"Better" not just "Bigger"

      To be pleasant and a joy to live in, a home must fit your needs, your habits, your life-style, your personality, your taste, and your sense of comfort and beauty like a good pair of well worn shoes fit your feet, perfectly; Regardless of how expensive and "cool" those shoes may look, if they are too big or too small, too wide or too narrow, your entire body, not just your feet, will pay the price.

      Likewise, if the only thing a home has to offer is its gargantuan size and appearance it will not only hurt your pocketbook, it will feel like an albatross around your neck and hurt you where you truly live ...  in your heart and soul. 

Here's an apropos excerpt from Sarah Susanka's
book entitled  ...  "The Case for Comfort"

      After designing homes for 35 years, I have come to an inevitable conclusion:  We are all searching for "home", but we are trying to find it by building more rooms and more space.  Instead of thinking about the quality of the spaces we live in, we tend to focus on size and quantity.  But a house is so much more than its size and volume, neither of which has anything to do with comfort.  When most people contemplate building a new house or remodeling an existing one,  they tend to spend  time focusing on floor plan options and square footage.  But in a completed home, these are only a very small part of what makes an impression.  What also defines the character of a house are the details, such as beautiful stair railings, well-crafted moldings around windows and doors, beautiful ceilings, and useful, finely tailored built-ins.  These details are what attract us to older homes.

     New homes should be no different.  However, such details cost money. And unless people are working with an architect, it is unusual to spend much time thinking about these aspects of the design.  Because most people start with a desire for more space than their budgets allow, anything more than the basic space, minimally detailed, will exceed the budget.

      People who are attracted to architecturally designed houses tend to seek a higher level of detail.  So a good architect will suggest reducing square footage to allow for more detail.  It isn’t unusual for an architect’s estimate of square-foot cost to be half again as much as a builder’s.  The architect is simply aware that, given the client’s desire for detail, a house without detail is not going to be satisfactory.  We’re already familiar with this design concept in automobiles.  The quality and detail of a Mercedes, Lexus, or Jaguar are far more important than the size of the car.  More space does not equal more comfort.  In fact, size has nothing to do with the appeal of these cars.  If you want nothing but space, you buy an equally expensive diesel truck.

      The current pattern of building big to allow for quantities of furniture with still more room to spare is more akin to wearing a sack than a tailored suit.  It may offer capacity, but generally at the cost of comfort and charm.  Spaciousness, although it can look appealing in a photograph, just isn’t conducive to comfort.  Many of the huge rooms we see in magazines today are really only comfortable to be in when they are filled with people.  For one or two, or for a family of four, they can be overwhelming.  And when rooms feel overwhelming, they don’t get used.

     Look up the word “comfortable” in any dictionary and you’ll see a range of entries attempting to describe it.  Webster’s offers a wide variety of definitions, from “fitted to give tranquil enjoyment” to “free from pain and trouble.”  So how do we create comfort?

     One of the tools that can help you determine what feels comfortable is to gain a better understanding of the proportions of the space.  After carefully studying a set of blueprints, most people still haven't the foggiest idea what it would feel like to be in a given "space".   Proportion literally refers to the relationship of the vertical to the horizontal dimension.  It also includes the relationship to the third dimension, depth.   Because we are human beings and come in sizes typically ranging from just under 5 ft. to mid-6 ft., those three dimensions also need to relate to our human height.  Some people can just tell when a space is pleasingly proportioned, while other people cannot.  The ability to read a space this way is similar to and “ear” for music.

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