No, I was not serious about “Morningwood.”
The Shire has my interest! If I lived in the part of the US, and had bingo bucks, I’d probably buy one of those homes!
Thank you for posting that! Very different!
I guess that because I live in an area that has been developed over the last 390 years or so (One of the Pilgrims lived half a mile down the street from my house.), I find it hard to believe anyone can ask this question at all. It is rare in many neighborhoods in my town to find two similar houses side by side.
On Main Street the oldest house was built in 1742 and the newest were probably part of a small condo project about thirty years ago.
The street I grew up on was developed between about 1900 and 2006. There are about 40 houses on the street ranging from 1 story “capes” and bungalows to two story cottages of all shapes. There are a couple of three floor tenement houses thrown in the mix as well.
There are some small sections of town that were planned developments, most of those are of very recent origin. There are still plenty of places where one can build an undeveloped lot, even in an older established neighborhood, and build whatever the building codes allow.
Greensboro, NC has a subdivision in the good part of town called “Morning Wood.” I used to see the big sign every day as I drove to work.
There is an old folks home on a road called Mourning Wood as well.
Well, no, they aren’t. Usually when you see a new development with just four or five housing types it’s because the same builder built most or all of the homes, and they’re building from a selection of preplanned models that sell well and that were designed according to the house fashions of the time the subdivision was developed.
One thing that may mitigate this is when a BIG developer creates a truly large development that has more than one “pod” of housing. They may sell each pod to a different home builder who will have a different set of house models. So a 2,000 acre project will have four or five subdivisions that each have four to six models of house.
Come to Northlake, IL. There are stone houses with turrets, Cape Cods, McMansions, traditional ranch, older brick homes which seem to be made with gingerbread in mind, and some rough wood sided houses that would look at home on a California seacoast, and many, many houses which defy categorization.
We chose to live here partly because it was so evident that there was not conformity of style. The lawn are kept fairly neat, but not anywhere near the same.
There was a piece of land in Northlake that was going to be turned into condo hell, and instead, they made it a park for all to enjoy.
MrSquishy writes:
> This isn’t really related to the OP, since it’s not “anything goes” zoning, but I
> bet it is of interest to many Dopers: The Shire.
The Shire doesn’t look so much like “old century English architecture,” as the website claims, as like a Thomas Kinkade theme park.
That was my first frightened thought as the original photo displayed started out as a typical (no such thing as “classic”) Kinkade before the scene altered to daylight.
Personally, I was disappointed that it was not a series of earth-sheltered homes set into hillsides with round doors and windows.
There is a new neighborhood similar to the OP’s description in Davis, CA. Most of the houses are lavish. Grecian columns are popular, and there’s a goodly amount of stucco. One house that’s currently going up is more modern, with odd angles and big areas of concrete, glass and wood.
And then there are the obligitory 4 lowish income houses that the city mandates all new developments must include. The 2 duplexes look so sad compared to the sweeping curved driveways and enourmous planters of their brethern.
There’s a stretch of road near the house I grew up in featuring two expensive custom houses that my friends and I dubbed “Tara” and “The Alamo”. I think one of them is gone now.
Then there was a town where my friend lived that is a living pulsing add for zoning and neighborhood standards. All the houses were variations on your standard tract house, most were supremely ugly, and the clash of colors looked absolutely hideous together.
Was anyone throwing stones?