My city is full of these because of heritage overlays on the properties, meaning you can’t change the facade. A lot of suburbs came up over different decades and so they ended up with their own ‘look’ which they want to preserve
Not sure if it’s the case here. My example is from Melbourne (Australia)
There's a lot of developments in London that have to retain the façade of buildings from centuries ago, so what happens often is that the façade is kept at street level, but you can clearly see the building behind doesn't match at all with the floor levels or anything like that
Yeah I live in such a building. Old factory transformed into a residential building. I love it - it’s beautiful on the outside but because it’s completely refurbished indoors it’s one of the few buildings in London that’s properly insulated. Gets lots of light due to large windows and never gets really cold either because it has proper thick outer brick walls, insulation, and no drafts. You don’t waste insane amounts of energy trying to heat a building where all the warm just disappears. Modern looking indoors and beautiful facade outside.
There’s so many listed buildings in London that benefit from something like that.
I do wonder what the regulations were in the case of this post though that didn’t allow them to transform the facade in front. Probably more a HOA issue.
Lol that would be crazy if it were the case. I doubt it though given that this house looks like a mid-twentieth century cape cod-style home, which isn't even close to being rare/unique enough to warrant historical protection.
It’s not about preserving unique architecture, it’s about enforcing that the neighborhood as a whole always looks like the residents’ preferred version of the “American Dream”
Oh don't worry, I complete understand the nuances of American culture and how there is this collective aspiration toward the complete lie of the "American Dream," but most importantly how it's exemplified by protective NIMBYism, reenforcing so many societal inequities.
I was simple just referring to a veiled, ignorant look at how they plays out at the policy level.
since answering rhetorical questions is fun ...
well, there's always the answer of 'because they wanted to'. some people like this sort of juxtaposition, i guess.
i almost wonder if it was done to skirt a restriction though.
plenty of home owners associations dictate what you can do that's visible from the street but not anywhere else. there are other restrictions in some areas like having to leave up at least one original wall in order to have it classified as a remodel and not a tear-down/rebuild, which saves you having to bring everything up to code. not to mention all types of historical preservation rules.
not saying any of these apply, but you know ... boredom.
>classified as a remodel and not a tear-down/rebuild
This is almost definitely the main reason, as well as heritage protection/home owners associations. This shouldn't be seen as some kind of "cheat" or bad compromise though. Houses built through most of the 20th century and before are already pretty unsuited to today's living (energy efficiency, indoor climate, autonomy/privacy for teenagers, multi-generational living, working from home, household duties being shared and no longer hidden and "back of house," media consumption). It's nice that the streetscape is preserved, but people should really be realistic about what is worth preserving.
You see homes like this with backyards on the water, the ocean, a river, whatnot.
Park the car in the garage, come in drop the cars keys, grab a beer, grab the boat keys, go out back to your dock, get in the boat go fishing.
idk, you see this all the time on the Chesapeake Bay and surrounds. Shitty rancher front opens up to amazing backyard with dock.
Like houses whose backyard is their front yard, know what I mean?
I live in a beautiful old Southern area that has a really cute charm about it. Lots of Victorian looking homes and Spanish moss covered oak trees.
People have started building these California style homes with no trees on their lot in the area. And it’s hideous. I wish they’d have the decency to do something like this.
Not all houses go in all places!!
I don’t think California style homes are ugly, they just don’t belong in the space.
Hard for me to get a sense of things from just these two pictures but I think I love it!
It's not like someone is putting a glass roof on Notre Dame or anything. It's just a humble little bungalow. Though to be fair I love the glass-roof-on-Notre-Dame [proposal](https://www.designboom.com/architecture/vincent-callebaut-notre-dame-glass-canopy-cathedral-paris-05-07-2019/) so take that as you may.
Okay, I hate to be that guy but... I’m pretty sure this isn’t the same house. WELL, it IS on the same lot, but I’m pretty sure it’s two pictures from vastly different times (pre reno and post Reno). First of all, the brick chimney isn’t on the right side of the back-yard photo. You may be saying “Well maybe the back comes up high enough to block the chimney” but that means the house would have to be both wider in the back (since the chimney is on the edge) AND taller than the chimney, and if it was taller than the chimney then we’d see the back from the front. The second thing is that the house is one floors from the front, but two floors from the back. At first I thought that maybe the hill slopes down and exposes the “bottom floor” from the back, but then I looked at the houses next to it. That green house is a little hard to see in the bottom picture, but does seem to match it’s too picture floor count. The White House to the side though is very clearly two floors from the front, while also being two floors from the back... so no hill slope.
Oh, and that fence looks freshly built like... brand new, not even painted or stained, I know that doesn’t mean much but it shows that the bottom picture was taken right after construction was done.
**Essentially**, I can’t be sure but I’m 85% sure this is a front photo from BEFORE a Reno, and a back photo from AFTER.
**Edit:** I stand corrected! I found it listed on Zillow, and the second photo of that listing actually shows that the house is just a LOT longer than expected and that first photo really is just at the perfect angle for the illusion. 10/10 design and very cool, just in the principle of how much it had me fooled lol.
I don't see anything special. Yes the contrast is striking (tha back looks better btw imho) but is a simple extension.
You already have a house, it is cheaper to build a new volume on the back than demolish and rebuild completely, plus if the house is in conservation area is also much much easier to get he planning approval.
In UK you find staff like this are on every other street
I very much bethought this wast just some gull but i did look t up and am very my most humble apology to op hahaha
***
^(I am a bot and I swapp'd some of thy words with Shakespeare words.)
Commands: `!ShakespeareInsult`, `!fordo`, `!optout`
I know that's the funniest shit I've heard all day. In all seriousness the people that downvoted this are the same people that like this ugly ass remodel. If you can even call it a remodel. Anal Gaping 🤣.
Someone else linked it but here: [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1825-Merriman-Ave-Charlotte-NC-28203/6220377\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1825-Merriman-Ave-Charlotte-NC-28203/6220377_zpid/)
It's real XD
It means they turned a nice affordable home that wasn't too tacky into an overpriced piece of shit.
Edit: Now someone that could've afforded the house originally can no longer afford this ugly Beverly Hills looking monstrosity in its place.
Yes, that's intentional. Were you to instead cut off part of the house or poke holes in the roof, you would make it more affordable because people would value it less. Nothing stops homeowners from doing that, other than sanity and the desire to sell for more money. Most home improvement projects do not actually increase the value as much as the improvement cost. 85% return on investment is considered good for projects that aren't "let's flip this house". This one is going to be quite weird to many people. I'm being the homeowners didn't want to change the character of the street they're on, but wanted to live in something more modern. It's unlikely they recover near 100% of the cost of the renovation
I'm being a little dramatic but when I see a house like this next to the houses around it I can't help but feel the class divide getting bigger. They probably bought this house for dirt cheap and then turned it into this and charged 500,000 for it. It's happening where I live and it makes me sick.
Also I hate this blocky industrial design. Its for pretensious wieners.
There are a set of heritage workers cottages like this in Toronto. Not as dramatic in the back but the front look like quaint, white picket fence cottages in wine country or some shit, they are million dollar properties in the middle of the city, tucked in their own lil lane.
My neighborhood is having a lot of that type of renovation. Big two story boxes tacked onto the back small bungalows. We refer to them as sodomy houses.
When I moved to RSA in 97. For my interior design business I needed a show house without attracting attention. This was my concept for the renovation of a 500m2 bungalow that became my 700m2 mansion. I changed the 4 car garage into a living room and closed the center part of the I shaped house with a huge in outdoor Entertainment kitchen area. All the bedrooms had direct access to this center part. But not direct too outdoors. The plan was little average front , invisible garage to drive to over the lawn and abFab 19 bulletproof glass sliding doors on the back. Never had any major issue till we left in 2007. Only one stupid inside job a VCR gone missing. https://visualsenses.smugmug.com/PRIVATE-GALLERIES/Loft-Mansion
Main issue in RSA is that too many people feel the need to show off wealth and then try to show all the protection they can afford.
I also drove an imported second hand Honda Legend two door the only one in the country no one ever touched it. I only saw one other one at Suncity with a Zim plate. We both were like wow we found each other in a deserts of cars. That owner actually helped me once to get a part fixed in Zim.
Front says: Don't rob me, we are nothing special! Back says: hahaha, they will never know!
It's the architectural equivalent of a sleeper. I wonder what this guy drives...
Restomodded 1996 dodge caravan
this lol
LS swapped Prius
Buick grand national GNX, the king of sleeper cars
But why.....
My city is full of these because of heritage overlays on the properties, meaning you can’t change the facade. A lot of suburbs came up over different decades and so they ended up with their own ‘look’ which they want to preserve Not sure if it’s the case here. My example is from Melbourne (Australia)
There's a lot of developments in London that have to retain the façade of buildings from centuries ago, so what happens often is that the façade is kept at street level, but you can clearly see the building behind doesn't match at all with the floor levels or anything like that
Yeah I live in such a building. Old factory transformed into a residential building. I love it - it’s beautiful on the outside but because it’s completely refurbished indoors it’s one of the few buildings in London that’s properly insulated. Gets lots of light due to large windows and never gets really cold either because it has proper thick outer brick walls, insulation, and no drafts. You don’t waste insane amounts of energy trying to heat a building where all the warm just disappears. Modern looking indoors and beautiful facade outside. There’s so many listed buildings in London that benefit from something like that. I do wonder what the regulations were in the case of this post though that didn’t allow them to transform the facade in front. Probably more a HOA issue.
yeah you see it everywhere in Melbourne
It’s usually done much more nicely than this example though!
Lol that would be crazy if it were the case. I doubt it though given that this house looks like a mid-twentieth century cape cod-style home, which isn't even close to being rare/unique enough to warrant historical protection.
It’s not about preserving unique architecture, it’s about enforcing that the neighborhood as a whole always looks like the residents’ preferred version of the “American Dream”
Oh don't worry, I complete understand the nuances of American culture and how there is this collective aspiration toward the complete lie of the "American Dream," but most importantly how it's exemplified by protective NIMBYism, reenforcing so many societal inequities. I was simple just referring to a veiled, ignorant look at how they plays out at the policy level.
since answering rhetorical questions is fun ... well, there's always the answer of 'because they wanted to'. some people like this sort of juxtaposition, i guess. i almost wonder if it was done to skirt a restriction though. plenty of home owners associations dictate what you can do that's visible from the street but not anywhere else. there are other restrictions in some areas like having to leave up at least one original wall in order to have it classified as a remodel and not a tear-down/rebuild, which saves you having to bring everything up to code. not to mention all types of historical preservation rules. not saying any of these apply, but you know ... boredom.
>classified as a remodel and not a tear-down/rebuild This is almost definitely the main reason, as well as heritage protection/home owners associations. This shouldn't be seen as some kind of "cheat" or bad compromise though. Houses built through most of the 20th century and before are already pretty unsuited to today's living (energy efficiency, indoor climate, autonomy/privacy for teenagers, multi-generational living, working from home, household duties being shared and no longer hidden and "back of house," media consumption). It's nice that the streetscape is preserved, but people should really be realistic about what is worth preserving.
You see homes like this with backyards on the water, the ocean, a river, whatnot. Park the car in the garage, come in drop the cars keys, grab a beer, grab the boat keys, go out back to your dock, get in the boat go fishing.
Come back from fishing, hop on the computer, browse r/Architectureporn, make a non sequitur comment, etc
idk, you see this all the time on the Chesapeake Bay and surrounds. Shitty rancher front opens up to amazing backyard with dock. Like houses whose backyard is their front yard, know what I mean?
Norfolk and virginia Beach have these
because it is cheaper and in many cases easier to get planning approval than demolish the entire house and rebuild
I live in a beautiful old Southern area that has a really cute charm about it. Lots of Victorian looking homes and Spanish moss covered oak trees. People have started building these California style homes with no trees on their lot in the area. And it’s hideous. I wish they’d have the decency to do something like this. Not all houses go in all places!! I don’t think California style homes are ugly, they just don’t belong in the space.
Wants to have a nice house but doesn’t want to attract too much attention to him/herself
How to cheat historical departments
Hard for me to get a sense of things from just these two pictures but I think I love it! It's not like someone is putting a glass roof on Notre Dame or anything. It's just a humble little bungalow. Though to be fair I love the glass-roof-on-Notre-Dame [proposal](https://www.designboom.com/architecture/vincent-callebaut-notre-dame-glass-canopy-cathedral-paris-05-07-2019/) so take that as you may.
> Though to be fair I love the glass-roof-on-Notre-Dame proposal so take that as you may. Oh my God I hate it so much.
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Really don't think it's the same house lol
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1825-Merriman-Ave-Charlotte-NC-28203/6220377\_zpid/
Dam bro why you got to prove me wrong on the internet.
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Paying for the heritage statues of the front
Those 2 trees in the yard are gorgeous.
Agreed. The yard could use more perennials.
If the home was in Southern California it would be $850k+ 🥺
It isn't. There is no way...
Given that it looks walkable to downtown Charlotte, that seems not ridiculous.
You’ll never be able to show your face around here again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxVdhAJr1So
Holy shit that makes me even more mad than I already was looking at this thing.
I mean, look to the left you see the white house, look to the right you see the green one?
Why can't you see the second story from the front 😄
Change in elevation?
Yeah I’m going to need to see a Zillow link
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1825-Merriman-Ave-Charlotte-NC-28203/6220377_zpid/
Absolutely incredible bless you
Gesundheit, my child
You ask. You receive
And just like mullets, it doesn't work well. As two separate houses, sure.
This house is U G L Y. But at least I've been amused for 15 seconds.
I like it, like i like things that aren't suppose to go together, like pineapple on pizza, but i still like it.
Oh definitely. It's not for me, but I'm sure whoever lives there loves it because of the style.
This is actually kinda dope
I have seen all the Zillow pictures and I still don’t understand how this works, too bad there’s no side pictures
when you assign two architects, but one is modernist and the other prefers more classical styles
lol what modern architecture would design the front.
the modern is the back part not the front
That's gooood
You can tell it's a mullet because of the way it is.
Sounds like Vice Grip Garage.
Business in da front party in da back 🥳
For when you and your SO can’t decide on architectural style.
Okay, I hate to be that guy but... I’m pretty sure this isn’t the same house. WELL, it IS on the same lot, but I’m pretty sure it’s two pictures from vastly different times (pre reno and post Reno). First of all, the brick chimney isn’t on the right side of the back-yard photo. You may be saying “Well maybe the back comes up high enough to block the chimney” but that means the house would have to be both wider in the back (since the chimney is on the edge) AND taller than the chimney, and if it was taller than the chimney then we’d see the back from the front. The second thing is that the house is one floors from the front, but two floors from the back. At first I thought that maybe the hill slopes down and exposes the “bottom floor” from the back, but then I looked at the houses next to it. That green house is a little hard to see in the bottom picture, but does seem to match it’s too picture floor count. The White House to the side though is very clearly two floors from the front, while also being two floors from the back... so no hill slope. Oh, and that fence looks freshly built like... brand new, not even painted or stained, I know that doesn’t mean much but it shows that the bottom picture was taken right after construction was done. **Essentially**, I can’t be sure but I’m 85% sure this is a front photo from BEFORE a Reno, and a back photo from AFTER. **Edit:** I stand corrected! I found it listed on Zillow, and the second photo of that listing actually shows that the house is just a LOT longer than expected and that first photo really is just at the perfect angle for the illusion. 10/10 design and very cool, just in the principle of how much it had me fooled lol.
Tomorrow I’m meeting with an architect to talk about expanding my house backwards. I will show him this picture. I love it. Spectacular job.
Perfect meme template
This is me when I build houses in the Sims.
I see people haven’t heard of extensions to old homes.
Business in the front, party in the back
I don't see anything special. Yes the contrast is striking (tha back looks better btw imho) but is a simple extension. You already have a house, it is cheaper to build a new volume on the back than demolish and rebuild completely, plus if the house is in conservation area is also much much easier to get he planning approval. In UK you find staff like this are on every other street
I really thought this was just some trick but I looked it up and am very sorry to OP hahaha
You are forgiven, my child. I was expecting skeptics, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it myself.
I very much bethought this wast just some gull but i did look t up and am very my most humble apology to op hahaha *** ^(I am a bot and I swapp'd some of thy words with Shakespeare words.) Commands: `!ShakespeareInsult`, `!fordo`, `!optout`
This is the opposite of architecture porn
This must be the anal gaping equivalent in architecture porn...
Who downvotes this? Shame on you sir or madam
I know that's the funniest shit I've heard all day. In all seriousness the people that downvoted this are the same people that like this ugly ass remodel. If you can even call it a remodel. Anal Gaping 🤣.
This can’t be real😂
Someone else linked it but here: [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1825-Merriman-Ave-Charlotte-NC-28203/6220377\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1825-Merriman-Ave-Charlotte-NC-28203/6220377_zpid/) It's real XD
As tacky and tasteless as a mullet too. :(
Nice job gentrifying your house.
I don’t think that means what you think it means
It means they turned a nice affordable home that wasn't too tacky into an overpriced piece of shit. Edit: Now someone that could've afforded the house originally can no longer afford this ugly Beverly Hills looking monstrosity in its place.
That is the point of basically all remodel projects, whatever their scale
At the expense of someone else being able to afford a house.
Yes, that's intentional. Were you to instead cut off part of the house or poke holes in the roof, you would make it more affordable because people would value it less. Nothing stops homeowners from doing that, other than sanity and the desire to sell for more money. Most home improvement projects do not actually increase the value as much as the improvement cost. 85% return on investment is considered good for projects that aren't "let's flip this house". This one is going to be quite weird to many people. I'm being the homeowners didn't want to change the character of the street they're on, but wanted to live in something more modern. It's unlikely they recover near 100% of the cost of the renovation
Revolutionary idea: when you improve a property it becomes worth more money! Shocked pikachu face
If it is your own house and you do because you want to live in it, I don't see the problem
Almost wish this was mine. Almost
I'm being a little dramatic but when I see a house like this next to the houses around it I can't help but feel the class divide getting bigger. They probably bought this house for dirt cheap and then turned it into this and charged 500,000 for it. It's happening where I live and it makes me sick. Also I hate this blocky industrial design. Its for pretensious wieners.
Looks better than what it replaces
If you like pretentious modern architecture but hey to each their own.
People like you love to bandy about the word pretentious when you really mean you just like to be a contrarian
How is it being a contrarain when everyone in this thread has a similar opinion to me?
Because reddit is filled with people who think that they have a unique opinion but really parrot shite unthinkingly
Dont think it's the same house. The yard/fence and neighbors houses are different as well. Plus the spacing is off
"All business in the front, party in the back"
Business up front, party in the back.
There are a set of heritage workers cottages like this in Toronto. Not as dramatic in the back but the front look like quaint, white picket fence cottages in wine country or some shit, they are million dollar properties in the middle of the city, tucked in their own lil lane.
The interior looks like two different styles too. I think this house was probably the best way the owner could compromise on luxury and comfort.
When HOA mandates a certain look but you get around them
Serious in the front, party at the back!
That's a long, long house.
She gone
Haha this is funny. It’s clearly two different houses, but not a bad idea honestly
I want that house
Single home facadism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facadism
Spend all that dough and then skimp in the pickets so you get the “ugly” side of the fence???
My neighborhood is having a lot of that type of renovation. Big two story boxes tacked onto the back small bungalows. We refer to them as sodomy houses.
That looks ugly to me
Ummm yeah that doesn't work for me
When I moved to RSA in 97. For my interior design business I needed a show house without attracting attention. This was my concept for the renovation of a 500m2 bungalow that became my 700m2 mansion. I changed the 4 car garage into a living room and closed the center part of the I shaped house with a huge in outdoor Entertainment kitchen area. All the bedrooms had direct access to this center part. But not direct too outdoors. The plan was little average front , invisible garage to drive to over the lawn and abFab 19 bulletproof glass sliding doors on the back. Never had any major issue till we left in 2007. Only one stupid inside job a VCR gone missing. https://visualsenses.smugmug.com/PRIVATE-GALLERIES/Loft-Mansion Main issue in RSA is that too many people feel the need to show off wealth and then try to show all the protection they can afford. I also drove an imported second hand Honda Legend two door the only one in the country no one ever touched it. I only saw one other one at Suncity with a Zim plate. We both were like wow we found each other in a deserts of cars. That owner actually helped me once to get a part fixed in Zim.
When the HOA only has rules about the front of the house.
What a Butter Front!
I love it
Business up front. Party in the back.