Has Anyone Ever Developed "Brownstone" Type Dwellings

Comments(10)

• 
  rup1st April, 2004

  Dont know about Charlotte, but in Salt Lake City, there is a development at the south end of the valley that is modeled after the brownstone concept. It has actually done very well.

• 
  agilellc1st April, 2004

  Rup
  
  Thanks do you know the name of the project? :-D

• 
  carolina_investor1st April, 2004

  I live in Charlotte and have had similar thoughts (although more from a design side, I work for an Architect). I'd love to see someone pull it off. Contact me directly, I may be able to help.

• 
  agilellc1st April, 2004

  carolina_investor,
  
  What is the best way to contact you?

• 
  GFous1st April, 2004

  What you are really talking about is zero lot line town homes ( I think) These are done all time all over SW Florida.
  
  Mostly in planned communitties though.
  
  Gregg
  [addsig]

• 
  agilellc1st April, 2004

  GFous,
  
  The style is really what I want to capture. I don't want it to look like your standard boooriing town home

• 
  NancyChadwick1st April, 2004

  Here's a somewhat different twist.
  
  There's a townhome community in my area that was patterned on the Christopher Wren London townhome. The house exteriors are 100% authentic (red brick, cedar shake roof, doors, dormers, windows, etc.) but each original homeowner had the opportunity to customize the interior. The builder spent years researching from London to Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and New York. The community (called Willowmere) looks and feels like the historic area of Philadelphia near Independence Hall. If you didn't see cars there, you would swear you had stepped back in time to the 18th century.
  
  Willowmere was and is absolutely unique--a jewel of a community.

• 
  InActive_Account2nd April, 2004

  Kenneth,We have a development in my area named Mt. Laurel which has a mix of brownstones,cottages,and craftsman style homes. It also has a town center which gives it a small town atmosphere. It is a 1st class development.

• 
  Boston5th April, 2004

  I'm up here in the Northeast working on a Brownstone project as we speak. How can I help?

• 
  Lufos5th April, 2004

  In Liverpool there is a slumy area which was developed some 150 years ago with "Row Housing" That is rows on rows of houses right to the front sidewalk. They have about five steps down to the sidewalks and they are oh my god traditional.
  
  They are heated by the stove which cooks the food and is also a fireplace. The upper stories are heated from openings in this fireplace chimmny. Needless to say the heating is negligible and the need exists to fill bottles with hot water and stick them into the bed before retiring. The toilets are at the back and have those lovely old boxes over your head. You pull a chain and a fine drizzle of water decends upon you usualy before you can leave the throne and escape.
  
  To live in one is a torment. The closets are so tiny. People just had one suit of clothes and a long muffler.
  
  They are called Council Houses and were originaly erected by the various councils as housing for what used to be called "The Lower Working Classes." Today they are described as "Them wots on the dole."
  
  But as all things must, time has had its way and they are failing one by one.So they are being torn down and in a series of letters and E.Mails back and forth we have suggested that as the lots happen they might consider replacement housing more in keeping with modern times. We submitted some drawings of houses made from containers of which Liverpool has a large and continuing supply. We suggest three stories up of steel and lots of double paned glass and all kinds of solar and radient heating systems so that the inhabitants can feel a little warmth in the winter and a little help with the electric bills which are really heavy. My god they could stop burning coke.
  
  They could learn to breath again. Of course it might be difficult getting used to not having a layer of coal dust on everything. But the British will adjust. Stiff upper lips and all that.
  
  The Council folk are for it, much to our suprise. I supose it is the cheapness of the new structure. But it would certainly give a great deal of local employment.
  
  Which brings me to the point. Here you people are wanting to go back to a style of architecture which was representative of another way of living. You miss the good old days when horses pulled everything and crossing a street called for good high boots and an orange held to the nose stuffed with cloves.
  
  Which way to go. Back or Forward. Of course you could all come to California, we mix it all together and on occasion we paint strips on houses and of course the occasional pink. Perhaps that is the answer.
  
  Cheers cogitating Lucius