North Morningside Craftsman, Atlanta
Builder: Yorkshire Enterprises
This infill spec home blends beautifully with the other historic homes in its Atlanta neighborhood, but it offers a host of features that its neighbors do not. Among them: an elevator with access to all four floors, wide gallery-style hallways, interior doors that are a minimum of 3 feet across, and a zero-threshold patio in the side yard. The master bath includes waterproofed flooring, a roll-in shower, roll-under sinks with mirrors on swivels, and raised outlets, to name a few other choice features. “We had a friend come to visit a couple years ago with his daughter, who has cerebral palsy, and it became obvious to us immediately that our house, which was built in the 1920s, didn’t function well for a person in a wheelchair,” builder Trina Summins explained during her presentation. “That got me thinking that it shouldn’t be too hard to build a house that is accessible to all people.”
This Craftsman-style beauty isn’t outfitted head-to-toe in universal design features, but “we thought about the structural things we needed to do upfront to accommodate features that might need to be added later,” she said,” like reinforcing bathroom walls to accommodate grab bars.”
Built to Earthcraft standards, the house is not only accessible, it’s green. Some of the exterior brick from the site’s original house was reused in a new fireplace mantel, while the remainder was chopped up and used as base for the driveway. Gypsum from the old house was ground up and used as soil additive. The new house is clad in a distressed brick that meshes seamlessly with older homes in the neighborhood. It’s a product that plays nicely with the streetscape, but also requires minimal maintenance.