It’s a distinctive breed, the Chicagoland house. Often a migrant from other regions, sometimes the result of crossbreeding, it needs certain features to survive. And it acquires these vital features as builders finesse floor plans native to Indiana, California or Florida.
“If a floor plan is fundamentally sound, the next thing to look at is how the house will work in this market, given consumer expectations,” said Mike Kelahan, who until recently was manager of sales and marketing for Ryland Homes, which builds in 39 U.S. cities and recently moved into the Chicago-area market.
“For example, a laundry room in the basement is acceptable on the East Coast. In Chicago, more and more laundry rooms are on the main floor. So (Ryland Homes) would rework an East Coast floor plan to put the laundry room on the main floor.”
Kitchen islands are a rarity on the East Coast and aren’t a big deal in California, but they carry a certain cachet here, Kelahan added.
“We may look at a plan and see that the size of the kitchen is OK, but we would add the kitchen island,” he said.
These aren’t just academic issues for home builders; those that operate in different markets make significant changes in floor plans to remain competitive.
One house that is the same and yet different across the country is the Eastmoor model built by Kimball Hill Inc. of Rolling Meadows.
In an Algonquin subdivision, the 2,500-square-foot house costs about $192,000 and has four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, two-story ceilings in the foyer and family room, and a garage built onto the front.
“In Houston, a house that size sells for about $140,000 in an upscale neighborhood,” said Dave Hill, chairman of Kimball Hill. “And everybody who buys a house for over $120,000 wants the garage detached and moved to the rear.”
So in Houston, the Eastmoor has a detached garage, creating a small back yard but a larger front yard than the Algonquin version.
The master bedroom and bathroom in the Houston version are moved to the ground floor, filling some of the space taken by the garage in Algonquin.
“The floor plan is much the same, but instead of garage doors at the front of the house, it has extra windows,” Hill said. “The house looks more elegant, and has grown by about 400 square feet.”
But when the Eastmoor moves to California, it gets smaller bathrooms than in Algonquin or Houston. “In California, really large bathrooms lost their allure years ago,” Hill said. “People want that extra space in the family room or bedrooms instead.
“In Houston you cannot sell a house for more than $120,000 without a fine master bath suite. In Chicago, we’re halfway between-we like large bathrooms, but we’re beginning to say we’d rather have other parts of the house bigger.’
Attitudes toward formal living rooms also vary, he said. “In California, you never find living rooms anymore. In Houston, you still have a very small living room. In Chicago, our formal rooms are much more highly prized than in California. In Milwaukee, they like houses the way they were built 15 years ago, and you really need a formal area.”
Trim also varies, Kelahan said. “Out East and West, painted trim is it. It’s hard to find a house with anything else. Here, it’s starting to become more popular, but people really love wood.”
But like all rules, this one has its exceptions; sometimes a house designed for another market will prove to be a hit in suburban Chicago.
U.S. Shelter Group of Itasca discovered that when it was building in Florida in the 1980s. “We would `Florida-ize’ our houses there by giving them touches of Florida architecture, which is very open,” said Jack Sorenson, U.S. Shelter president. “We developed one house that had cathedral ceilings and skylights-a very light look. We brought that house to Arlington Heights and used it as one of our model homes. It was very successful.”
Town and Country Homes of Oak Brook had a hit when it imported a California design for its Tallgrass development in Bartlett in 1991. At that time, many Chicago-area houses hewed to a standard design nicknamed “five, four and a door,” after the number of windows on the front-five windows on the second floor, four windows and a door on the first floor.
Ed Fitch, Town and Country’s vice president of marketing, explained: “You could look at the outside of the house and know what the inside looked like: The living room was on the left, the dining room on the right, the kitchen behind the dining room.
“We brought in a California look with lots of open vistas, greater volume, a master suite with expanded bathrooms, and open lofts. Customers reacted very favorably. Now a lot of builders have adopted that style, and the Chicago suburban house is harder to define.”
Although Town and Country imported the California design to Chicago with few alterations, transplanting it to Minneapolis has proven to be more complicated.
“Minneapolis is conservative,” Fitch said. “We had to take our more open plans and bring traditional elements into them. The ceiling heights are more traditional, and some of our plans now have very distinct separation between rooms.”
Also, Town and Country discovered that a three-car garage is about the standard in Minneapolis, while galley kitchens are a turn-off.
“People need a three-car garage to store their boats and outdoor equipment-the rate of boat ownership up there is amazing,” Fitch said. “Galley kitchens don’t work very well because apartments in that market have them, and home buyers want to move beyond them. Here, people like the style.”
Sometimes designs are too distinct to move.
In New Jersey, Calton Homes has one-acre lots, so houses can be 75 or 80 feet wide or long, explained Gary Doles, product manager for Calton Homes of Chicago. “Here, we build 40-foot homes, so there’s no sense in trying to adapt the New Jersey floor plan.”
On the other hand, Calton builds houses in Florida that are too small for Chicago-area lots, he said. The company’s Florida houses range from 900 to 1,500 square feet, while those in this area are 1,950 to 2,800 square feet. “Everything for this market is designed right here,” Doles said.
When evaluating a floor plan for Chicago potential, Kelahan looks for certain fundamentals, such as two living areas.
“More consumers want a living room separate from the family room, even if they don’t spend a lot of time in it,” Kelahan said. “The same is true of a formal dining area. Even in entry-level housing, where people don’t have a lot of discretionary income to spend on furnishing a dining room, it’s an important room.
“We look at how many bathrooms and bedrooms the house has, relative to the square feet; a 2,000-square-foot home should have three or four bedrooms. Another thing to look at is room size-10 feet by 10 feet is the minimum for a secondary bedroom.
“The number of windows is important, and so is volume in a house,” he continued. “Vaulted ceilings are important, but more people are turning to flat 9- or 10-foot ceilings because they can build another room over that ceiling.”
If a floor plan has these basics, it gets a Chicago flavor determined by what focus groups and consultants are saying, what competitors are offering-and what’s selling.
“Recently I flew down to Indianapolis to look at a floor plan for that market,” Kelahan said. “It was a good house overall, with 2,500 square feet and four bedrooms. But the master bedroom was not acceptable for Chicago; the bedroom closet was too small, the bathroom was too small and there weren’t enough windows.
“We decided to build that plan here, but first our division architect, David Niehoff, redesigned the master bedroom to enlarge the closet and bathroom, increase the vanity area and let in more light.”
Regional preferences aren’t the only issues builders face. Sometimes design changes are dictated by climate or soil, Sorenson said.
He noted, for example, that in Florida builders don’t need to worry about long periods of freezing temperatures as they do in the Chicago area. When frozen ground thaws it expands and shifts, requiring strong, deep foundations that can withstand the stress.
Some details change within the Chicago area itself.
“As you travel through the south suburbs, you find a heavier use of brick,” Sorenson said. “For some reason, the market demands brick in that area. When you get into the north or northwest suburban area, siding is very acceptable. In Barrington, the siding might be cedar. In starter homes it’s more likely to be aluminum or vinyl.”
In adapting floor plans to different parts of the Chicago area, U.S. Shelter first defines its target market. “Once we know who we’re trying to appeal to, that helps answer many questions,” Sorenson said.
For example, in Elgin and Aurora, the company sells starter houses that are almost identical. But the company realized its Elgin design would need polishing to sell in Lake County, although the houses would cost between $130,000 and $170,000 in both areas.
“Our feedback was that in Lake County, the high-end houses were going to sell. We looked at every floor plan and tried to improve on what we had,” Sorenson said.
One improvement was added space. In Elgin, the houses have 1,346 to 2,058 square feet. In Lake County, they have 1,358 to 2,144 square feet.
The age of buyers also dictates design changes, Fitch said. “Some empty-nesters love high ceilings, but a lot of others ask, `How much is it going to cost to heat that room?’ First-timer buyers with one or no kids, on the other hand, like open plans with drama.
“The Chicago market used to be a lot more monolithic. Now we have much more flexible spaces in houses.”
