For us at Custom Home magazine, a publication for custom builders and architects, a love of design and craft go hand in hand. The trickier the project and the slicker the execution, the happier we are to show it to you in the pages of the magazine and on our website. So, when it came time to pick the theme for our annual Pacesetter awards, the demanding discipline of traditional residential design and construction was a natural choice.
Builders who can do this work well often are head and shoulders above the crowd. They are truly exemplary. In many cases, their chief challenge is air traffic control—managing the dozens of highly specialized trades that a large, complicated classical custom home requires. This difficulty often is substantially increased when the project includes an existing historic or noteworthy house. Restoration or renovation, plus adding on seamless new rooms or other elements, means living in two worlds and two chronologies at the same time. Bringing the older work up to today’s standards of safety, function, and energy efficiency is balanced with the need to preserve the design integrity of the older structure.
When building anew in a familiar style, imperatives include choosing convincing materials that evoke a different era in construction. And then finding trades who actually know how to handle them. That kind of art and craft is dying out fast. The reward, when all is accomplished, is a new house that functions for today but suggests the timeless solidity of our best-loved historic houses.
We love modern architecture, too, at Custom Home, but we also understand that adopting any new look is a major risk. What’s in vogue today may not stand the test of time and changing tastes. Designing and building with a tried-and-true vocabulary of elements allows for infinite variety and fresh interpretation. As with modern architecture, there are good and bad examples of traditional design. In the end, it’s all about proportion, beautiful materials, and skilled craftsmanship. Our Pacesetters are adept at weaving all three into handsome custom homes for their clients. We honor their high standards and dedication in this issue—and of course, their gorgeous results.
