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Photograph by Joe Bayer; rendering courtesy of highmodernhomes.com
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OK, you’ve decided to take the plunge into modern and build minimalist. It’s 2008, and you’re going to live in a house that is clean, lean and supremely sleek.
But then you look around. You see mega-mansions with peaked roofs and drive-through courtyards—but that modern masterpiece? Nada. You call builders, and initial enthusiasm fades to skepticism, if not downright disgust. Face it. You’re outta luck.
Until now. Thomas MontAlto, an Ohio-based architect who built a modern masterpiece in Eureka (see “The White Box,” AT HOME, Mar/Apr 2006), is selling builder-ready plans so anyone can have his or her own minimalist manse.
“More and more people want modern,” Mr. MontAlto says. “The problem is, there is nothing out there for people who want to go down the street to their local builder and say, ‘I would like to build something like this.’ What we are providing is a way for homeowners to open a dialogue with a builder. They can say, ‘We have this plan. Can you build this for us?’”
Mr. MontAlto and his colleagues have designed a dozen houses, ranging in size from 2,000 to 7,000 square feet. The price starts at $900 for a study set of plans to $4,000 for a full construction set. The renditions and the details of the homes can be found on the website: highmodernhomes.com.
The cost of construction starts at $300,000 for the smallest. The largest? “Massive,” Mr. MontAlto laughs. “They’re expensive, OK? Absolutely several million. But the range is good. It’s not just for the guy who’s got $2 million and wants a bridge to his master suite.”
The houses come in a variety of finishes—from stucco (in the classic white and variations of gray) to redwood. Inside, the floors range from concrete to French limestone; walls in ice white or softened to ivory; cabinets can come in beechwood.
“There are a lot of people out there who love the shape and the forms and the spaces of modernism, but they want a warmer palette of materials,” Mr. MontAlto says.
While modern, long, lean, sleek and stunning, the high modern designs wouldn’t qualify as revolutionary. They are classic boxes, all variations on the MacDonald house in Eureka, Mr. MontAlto’s initial inspiration, and the Bidwell house in Ohio.
“Why are we doing this minimalist, sleek high modern as opposed to Frank Gehry?” Mr. MontAlto wonders out loud. “For one thing, nobody can afford Frank Gehry. For another, no builder you know could build it. These are classic design styles, and they already have some gravity in the marketplace.”
And the plans to build them are right off the Web.
