His and her houses
This year’s Parade of Homes features designs with ‘girl’ and ‘guy’ in mind
Even in this genderfluid age, certain traits, trends and fashions strike many observers as either masculine or feminine.
Home design is no exception. Women, in general, tend to like airy and open designs,
while many men prefer darker and more denlike spaces, said Brooke Aquino, a designer for 3 Pillar Homes.
The homebuilder has two houses on this year’s BIA Parade of Homes illustrating the idea: A “girl’s house” and, right next door, a “guy’s house.” The two homes are “designed to showcase a wide variety of styles and to show how diverse we can be” as homebuilders, said Rachael Durant, director of sales for 3 Pillar.
In all, the 2019 Parade of Homes, at the new Evans Farm development in southern Delaware County, features 14 homes from 12 homebuilders,
all of them eye-popping in their own way.
The two genderdisparate houses are sure to inspire conversation among this year’s visitors.
Aquino served as designer for both homes.
“I love both,” she said. But her experience has led her to believe that if a vote were taken, most women would prefer the “girl” house and most men the other, Aquino said.
In a traditional family home, she said, the overall design usually is a compromise between husband and wife.
“Girls mostly win in the kitchen and master bath. Men get the lower levels.”
In the 3 Pillar “girl” home, light colors dominate. Visitors are immediately welcomed by a glass-arched front door letting in a flood of natural light.
The huge kitchen offers cabinets in a delicate blue, with innovative features such as white mattefinish appliances and a pot-filler spigot above the stove. (Although designed with women in mind, I liked the big, open cooking area a lot.)
The home is designed for family life, with a cute-and-cozy kids’ loft with built-in desks and cabinets, a grandmother’s suite, and kids’ bedrooms on either side of a connecting bathroom.
The house is peppered with colorful tile and hardware accents.
A Tudor-style home with a French country feel, it has a smooth, white stucco exterior, prominent stone accents and a decorative whitescalloped fence.
The “guy” house next door features plenty of light inside, too, but with a “blackon-black exterior” that includes massive cedar entryway posts and black-framed windows. 2019 Parade of Homes
Visitors entering the “guy” house immediately encounter a brick entry hall designed to look like “an old-fashioned structural wall,” Aquino said.
Indeed, many features in the “guy” house evoke the feeling of a historic rehab, much like one might see in German Village or the Brewery District.
The galley-style kitchen is smaller than
Fourteen homes will be open to visitors in the annual Parade of Homes tour. Here is a glimpse of each: in the “girl” house, but it is still filled with top-notch amenities and leads directly into a bourbon-bar niche. The floors are hardwood throughout the main levels, with no softening carpet as is found in some rooms of the “girl” home.
The basement level features a polishedconcrete floor and has its own beautiful, brick-backed bar area and high ceilings painted black and open to the joists above, as one might see in a historic warehouseturned-condo rehab.
Exiting out the back door through the cigar porch, guests will find a 16-by-30 foot in-ground pool with a fountain, flanked by a free-standing brick fireplace.
The house makes full use of the rear alley, part of the Evans Farm “new urbanism” design, with a threecar detached garage between the pool and the alley. The garage has three traditional overhead garagedoors facing the alley, with one additional pool-facing overhead mirrored door that can be opened for access or entertaining — or for when you just really want to rev the engine of that ’69 Camaro you’re restoring.
The “girl” house also is the Parade of Homes Foundation house this year. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the house will go to scholarships for students interested in the building trades, and to Franklinton Rising, a nonprofit that teaches life and job skills to youth in the
Franklinton neighborhood, said Krissy Ciacchi, a BIA spokesperson.
Although none of the other Parade of Homes houses is gender specific, they do reflect the latest trends and innovations in home design.
“This is a great chance to showcase what we do and who we are,” said Ron Guzzo of Guzzo & Garner Custom Builders.
Guzzo’s company has been building one-of-akind custom homes in the New Albany area since 1993, but this is the first time the company has participated in the Parade of Homes, he said.
“My instruction to the designer was to have every room stand out and have a story to tell,” Guzzo said. “I wanted to expose people to new ideas. That’s why we have five different countertop materials” throughout the house, including a hickory island in the kitchen and a stylish concrete counter in the wine room.
The house’s behind-thescenes amenities include electric-car charging stations in the garage, tankless water heaters, dual sump pumps with backup batteries and engineered floor joists that eliminate squeaks.
More visible are steamedwalnut hardwood floors, a one-of-a-kind live-edge door, and a lower level theater room with an adjacent “speak-easy”-concept bar with a wood-waterfall top (with the counter material continuing down the sides) “worthy of any restaurant in town,” Guzzo said.
The lower level also includes a kids’ climbing wall and a bourbon room with barrels, a live-edge table and a full bath, Guzzo said.
“Like they say,” Guzzo said, “you don’t get a second chance at a first impression. We’re not for everybody, but those who like it will really like it.”
And that’s probably true, regardless of gender.
sstephens@dispatch.com @Stevestephens If You Go
The 2019 Parade of Homes, sponsored by the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio, will take place Saturday through July 28 in the new Evans Farm development off Lewis Center Road in southern Delaware County. Evans Farm is a “new urbanism” design, planned as a neighborhood with a variety of homes with shops, restaurants and parks within walking or short biking distance.
The parade will feature 14 custom homes by 12 builders, ranging in price from $759,000 to $1,360,000. Hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sundays. Tickets cost $18 on-site or $16 in advance online; free for children 12 and younger. Parking is included with admission.
For discount tickets and more information, visit biaparade.com.
More online
• To see a slide show of more home images, visit Dispatch. com/photos.
• To see a video from the Parade of Homes, visit Dispatch.com/videos.