These Houses Set the Standard for Curb Appeal
If a house is often a reflection of its inhabitants—how they live, their signature styles—then a home’s façade might be the most formal, elevated ideal of its owners, the brick-and-mortar version of an office uniform. Which of course makes it especially interesting for the rest of us. From the street, those of us who know what curb appeal feels like can easily begin to guess all manner of things about the individuals dwelling inside and their environs. Here, looking through AD ’s vast archives, we’ve unearthed some of the most enviable residential edifices—from an imposing anglophile’s pile in Connecticut to a low-slung oasis amid the aspen tress of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
Ireland's Birr Castle gets a dose of international chic when a globe-trotting aristocrat and his young family leave their beloved Beijing to return to the family estate. It was given a Gothic Revival makeover in the early 19th century.
Alexander Gorlin Architects created a waterfront vacation home consisting of five concrete, steel, and glass volumes for an American client in Ketch Harbour, Nova Scotia. Ray Frizzell Design devised the interiors.
Architect Marwan Al-Sayed and designer Jan Showers craft a majestic modern sanctuary in the Arizona desert. The front façade, like most of the house's walls, is composed of limestone blocks.
Painted in a Sherwin-Williams white, the clapboard Napa, California, residence is crowned by standing-seam steel gable roofs; at left is the outbuilding that gives the property its name, while the sculpture on the front lawn is by David Tanych.
Built in the early 1900s, the Connecticut house, dubbed North Court, was renovated with the help of designer Mark Cunningham
Architect Richard Meier takes his signature style to Luxembourg, creating a gleaming minimalist gem marked by arresting geometric volumes.
Porches and balconies lend a summery look to an East Quogue, New York, house devised by Robert A.M. Stern Architects and decorated by the design firm S. R. Gambrel; Edmund Hollander Landscape Architects handled the gardens.
Interior designer Shawn Henderson collaborated with Scott Lindenau of Studio B Architecture + Interiors to create a retreat in Aspen, Colorado, for a Hong Kong–based family; the structure is clad in Japanese plaster and reclaimed teak.
Making the most of a lush hillside spot in the Virgin Islands, designers Tony Ingrao and Randy Kemper carve out an exhilarating private paradise overlooking the azure sea. The property is clad in local granite.
The Hampton Bays, New York, retreat of decorator Muriel Brandolini and her family was conceived by architect Raffaella Bortoluzzi of of Labo Design Studio; the landscape is by Miranda Brooks.
Just off the Pacific Coast Highway, architectural designer Scott Mitchell devises a strikingly streamlined oceanside showplace for real-estate maven Kurt Rappaport. Concrete monoliths dot the gravel entrance drive.
Sports agent Stephen Dubin and his wife, Brenda Ellerin, an investment manager, commissioned Whipple Russell Architects to create a modernist home for their family on a sloping site in Beverly Hills; the interiors were decorated by Tocha Project, and the landscape design was overseen by Paul Robbins of British Garden Co.
An antebellum landmark built in the early 1850s, the Isaac Jenkins Mikell house in Charleston, South Carolina, is owned by Patricia Altschul.