Builders Bring Lofts
To Suburban Spots

For as long as memory can recall, builders have stayed true to the layout and design of the traditional home.

But at its annual convention next week in Las Vegas, the National Association of Home Builders will showcase the New American Home 2004, a stand-alone house that scraps the living and dining rooms for "flex space," or large undefined areas. Concrete floors replace wood and carpet. The use of walls to define rooms is minimal. In short, the home builders' vision of the suburban home looks a lot like the urban loft.

A cottage industry for new-construction lofts has already popped up in suburbs nationwide. One Phoenix builder is marketing newly built condominiums that have "the warehouse look," complete with exposed ductwork and sprinklers. In the tony Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica, Palisades Development Group LLC constructed lofts that sold for up to $750,000. Each structure includes entrances that roll up like industrial garage doors and outdoor lights that are shielded by a cage much like those found in forsaken alleys or jails.

Sponsored jointly by the home builders' association and Builder magazine, the New American Home project is aimed at capturing emerging trends in home building and the shifting lifestyles of Americans. New American Home 2004 is located in a wealthy Las Vegas suburb. The house has stylistic touches like staircases with cable handrails, but it isn't avant-garde or futuristic. Asking price: $1.8 million.

The design of the Las Vegas loft house implies that formal entertaining is effectively dead by doing away with separate dining and living rooms. Instead, it has a "great room" with the kitchen as its center. "How often do you really have cocktails in the living room?" asks Jiun Ho, the home's interior designer. "Usually, you stand around a kitchen with a drink while the host is cooking."

The loft-house concept coincides with a land squeeze in popular markets, leading home builders to look for ways to make the most out of space. And as land prices rise, builders are also looking for novel construction techniques that bring down the total cost of a new home.

The New American Home 2004, for example, is made out of a sort of high-tech cinder block that snaps together like Legos. The roof is made of large plywood and Styrofoam panels that can be "plopped down" onto the blocks with a crane, says Bart Jones, chief financial officer of Las Vegas's Merlin Contracting and Developing LLC, which built the prototype home.

The residential loft dates back to the 1950s when cash-strapped painters in Manhattan began moving into abandoned warehouses and industrial spaces. Loft living has since taken off in aging downtown and industrial areas nationwide and for decades its minimalist aesthetic has been in vogue with urban dwellers of all professions.

But when the association's National Council of Housing Industry weighed the notion of basing the New American Home on a loft, it wasn't convinced that everyday home buyers would embrace the concept. The council comprises 100 large building suppliers like faucet maker Kohler Co. But when the association's National Council of Housing Industry weighed the notion of basing the New American Home on a loft, it wasn't convinced that everyday home buyers would embrace the concept. The council comprises 100 large building suppliers like faucet maker Kohler Co. and Whirlpool Corp.

It turned out that lofts weren't a foreign concept for residents of Las Vegas, where a development of industrial-style homes had already fetched up to $320,000 apiece in an area defined by its tracts of pitched roof homes. New-construction lofts are also popping up in the suburbs of Portland, Ore., and in San Diego, says Marta Borsanyi, a land-use consultant for the Concord Group. The San Francisco firm did market research for the project.

"People are comfortable with the loft," Ms. Borsanyi says. "They're not saying, 'It's very interesting, but I wouldn't live in it.' "

Two age groups are driving the trend: young home buyers, who are currently active in the home-buying market thanks to low interest rates and easier mortgage financing, and empty nesters. Phoenix builder Eric Brown, who has built more than 80 loft condos, says his average buyer is "pushing 50."

These home buyers often have more need for an elegant office or an indoor gym than an extra bedroom. At the same time, most home buyers still want private bedrooms instead of those that open up into the common space. With this in mind, the Las Vegas showcase home places the bedrooms on the second floor and in the basement, away from the common room.

The Las Vegas home is designed to blend the needs of modern home buyers with traditional notions of a home in other ways. The rectangular home has a concrete facade and a low-pitched copper roof, which reflects the sun and doesn't need to be replaced. The concrete, of course, doesn't need to be painted. The low-maintenance dwelling is a draw for many home buyers leading increasingly busy lives.

The entrance to the 5,180-square-foot showcase home leads into the "great room," which is about the size of a small basketball court and is split into two levels. The kitchen is located against the interior wall and a simple island separates it from the rest of the room. The outside wall is lined with glass doors that look onto a courtyard. The doors slide open, allowing the merger of outdoor and indoor space.

To show the great room's many purposes, the interior designer photographed the space in several guises: Throwing down a rug in front of the kitchen and hanging a chandelier creates a dining area; take away the chandelier, add a couch and it's a traditional family room. People working out of their home could just as easily put in a studio or home office.

"We don't live like our parents live," Mr. Ho says. "People want to be creative in the way they live."

West Hollywood loft dweller David Wood agrees. Tired of the time it took to maintain his conventional hillside house, the 46-year-old advertising executive gave it up for a newly constructed loft two years ago.

Mr. Wood gets his decorating tips by scanning catalogs like Design Within Reach, a trendy seller of modern furniture. A self-described "media freak," Mr. Wood has hung a large plasma screen in his great room and made it into a screening room. His neighbors expanded their kitchen and made it the focal point of their loft home.

"If you don't like the second bedroom in a traditional house there's not a whole lot you can do," Mr. Wood says. "Here I can define my space anyway I want."

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