Discourse on Architectural Styles and their influences on Home Design [Desert Homes]  [Tahoe & Mountain Homes]  [Traditional Homes] [Country French Homes] New home design need not relate to a particular or previous style. When one is speaking of a certain house, however, one finds the need to use some descriptive term, to indicate its appearance. Therefore, even when a home has a new look, one may fall back on the architecture styles that most resemble or influence the new home design. Often, the most satisfying new home designs are derived from combining or blending influences from two or three recognized architectural styles. These custom home designs may then relate both to our social heritage and to the current times. Many people find that one of the enduring old styles is what they want for their new home. This approach can give them the best of both worlds, a technologically up to date dwelling, with much of the spaciousness of contemporary home design together with the solid, old character and ambiance they like in the old style. The eclectic approach is also popular, adding a pinch of one architectural style, and a dash of another, then combining them to give a bit of flavor to a contemporary design. Some of the home styles or design influences that have become popular in the last few years are the Country French, Tuscan, Mediterranean, Old Tahoe, Craftsman or Arts and Crafts. Some are not recognized architectural styles, but strong influences, nevertheless. Of these home styles, Country French design lends steep roofs, turrets, arched doorways and rustic wall surfaces of stucco and stone. The Tuscan design offers colorful low pitched gabled roofs, Venetian plaster, abundant stonework, and flat beamed ceilings. The Mediterranean home design give us much of the above, plus vaulted ceilings, more stucco, arched openings and deep arched windows and porches (loggia). The Craftsman home design includes exposed joinery, great wooden entry halls, battered columns with stone bases, and wide low pitched form. The Old Tahoe influence or style, utilizes high open timbered ceilings, low walls, tall dormered roofs, exterior finishes of contrasting rustic and smooth wood, and great stone fireplaces. Another rustic lodge style making a come back is the Adirondack Camp style, which is similar to Old Tahoe home design but employs more natural forest materials such as peeled log beams and trusses, log walls, twig work in gable decoration, balusters and furniture, and even birch bark used as wallpaper. Note that both Old Tahoe and Adirondack style homes came from Craftsman/arts and Crafts movement. The old New England home styles of Georgian and Federal contribute richly carved moldings, classical columns, and carved wooden mantle pieces. Palladian Classicism has been a major influence in architecture since the 16th century. From it today, we borrow such elements as long columned arcades, domed ceilings and roof, great proportions, and of course, the Palladian and Venetian windows. These next two home styles of Spanish decent are very similar. The Pueblo Revival home style gives us a very spare and square look with progressively stacked massing. Both Pueblo and Territorial have the same, flat, parapet-roofed houses, with log Vigas exposed at the ceilings, and smooth plaster finishes. In Pueblo home design, corners are rounded and the look is very organic or earthy, while the Territorial house plan adds plain, painted wood trim at doors and windows, adds brick coping at the roof parapets and turned wood posts at the porches (portales). Territorial design is more of a straight-lined style, having come to the southwest with the 'Anglos' in the 19th century, whereas the Pueblo home came out of the earlier Spanish settlement of the southwest. There are many more architectural styles, but these seem to be the most influential and popular in different areas of the country. Leigh Douglas Johnson