The Shingle Style and the Craftsman Style are quite different if you look beyond the common use of shingles and stone.

I would start with the site characteristics (defects and opportunities) and what you like about each of these distinctive styles. It sounds like you want a strong roof which makes me think you would prefer the Shingle Style.

macv - could you expand on the term "strong roof"?

Thanks - Jo Ann

I would consider a steep roof with long dramatic rakes, well integrated dormers, and cross gables to be visually strong. I would exclude common repeating or staggered gables and overly dramatic trim from this category since they so often erode the strength of the roof shape IMHO.

Here is one of my favorites in Salem MA. It has seven rather well known gables and is considered a Post medieval English design but it has much in common with the later Shingle Style.

Sounds like we're looking for much of the same things. Here's a couple plans I've got saved which might be close to what you're looking for:

This one is more Prairie/Craftsman, but has many of the elements you seek.
http://www.eplans.com/prairie_house-plans/HWEPL11086.hwx

This one is a Visbeen (a fav architect of mine) called Beaconsfield. It's bigger that what we're (and you're) looking for, but trimmed down a bit, the essentials are great.
http://www.eplans.com/shingle_house-plans/HWEPL68883.hwx

Do you want a full basement?
I am working on an incredibly similar home, same size and amenities and one of the options will have the same style. It's a custom design.
I think you have nothing to lose contacting Visbeen. Seems like it is worth it and most likely they have a plan that fits your needs. I thought that they were only custom designers but they also have stock plans according to the link.

Where are the dormers?

Thanks for your help everyone! I really appreciate all your comments.

macv - There's not much to our site really - just 10 acres of open Illinois pasture, so no restrictions there. I guess I'm not really sure what I like about these certain styles. I just wanted something a little different than the standard basic 2 story that is so common here. I like the look of a courtyard (?) style garage or a garage off to the side with an enclosed breezeway/mudroom and the shingle styles seem to be sprawling like this (am I making any sense?) :)

oicu812 - thanks for posting those plans - I do like the Visbeen one, but unfortunately it looks too narrow for us. We need something wide - but I do LOVE the home mgmt, mudroom area! Exactly what we're needing w/ 3 kiddos!

marthaelena - yes, we do want a full basement. We probably won't finish it right away though, but love to have the option of additional space (not to mention we're in a major tornado area). I'd love to see your floorplan if you can share it! I think you're right and I might just shoot Visbeen an email and get some info. Wouldn't hurt, right?

Here's a few links to some plans we like (but all would need some sort of tweaking)

love this one, but would need to cut 1k+ sq ft:
http://www.eplans.com/shingle_house-plans/HWEPL64900.hwx

like this one too, but again too big and I'd really like my kitchen to have an exterior window
http://www.frankbetz.com/homeplans/search_results.html

again, thanks for all the comments. Keep 'em coming!

laurensmom21,

I found this website....http://www.theplancollection.com/shingle-house-plans

Oh, and this looks good :)

http://www.dreamhomesource.com/shingle_house-plans_DHSW40306.hwx#floorplan

On that plan you say you like but is too big (http://www.eplans.com/shingle_house-plans/HWEPL64900.hwx), I'm wondering how they officially calculate sq ft'age.

When I do the math on many of these plans by summing the products of the given room dimensions, they rarely match the sq ft'age listed.

Also, most Visbeen plans include finished lower levels. Do those count in total sq ft? If so, you could omit that in the initial build.

Speaking of sq ft'age, our current home is ~1700 sq (and abt 25 yrs old) Same builder is now building the same floor plan across town, but with a 2car garage and 12x12 sunroom, and listing them as 3300 sq ft. What sort of ruler did he use to get those figures? Are builders just allowed to claim whatever size makes a home sound more profitable? Do buyers even question whether the claims are accurate or inflated?

I'm a huge fan of Jon Rentfrow homes. I realize that these plan are probably too large for your needs, but there are alot of pictures that may give you some inspiration, or just fun to look at.

Here is a link that might be useful: Jon Rentfrow Designs

You might like the 1994 Life Magazine Dream House designed by Robert A. M. Stern.

It appears to still be available through Southern Living.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stern's affordable Shingle Style house

Here is more info.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stern house

thanks again everyone for posting more sites - I think I could look at houses all day long (which is not good as my laundry pile indicates!) It's going to be really hard to narrow it down I think, I'm such an indecisive person and even more so if this is going to be our home for the next 10-15 years. We usually move every 2-4 years (dh has rehabbed several of our homes for flips)

oicu812 - that's crazy that a builder is trying to pass the same house off as 3300 sqft. Does it have a finished basement or something? Even so, you cannot technically list the basement as part of the overall sqft in the MLS. I'll have to have dh take a closer look at the plan I posted. He used to be an appraiser, so he should be able to come up with an accurate sqft amount. And no, builders cannot just claim whatever sqft they want (although some are off by a small amount). When they go to sell the house, the sqft must match with whatever the appraiser measures it to be or it could really throw off the value/comparables and chance to secure a loan.

macv - WOW that is gorgeous! Definitely love the exterior! I'm off to check out the floor plan. Thanks so much :)

If you care, you could not find a more prestigious architect than Stern to design your house and he is the master of the modern Shingle Style IMHO. I went to one of his lectures and got the impression that he holds that opinion as well but doesn't limit it to a particular style.

I have often thought of buying the plan set but I don't know if it is the set his office produced and if it is complete. If you like the house we should talk.

Here is the link to his house projects.

Most folks are familiar with his hotels at Disney World.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stern's houses

We, too, have a builder in town that is coming up with his own numbers on sq. footage. I always thought that a finished basement is quoted as a separate square footage from the main square footage. For example- main square footage 2000 plus a finished basement of 900 square feet.

Perhaps you clicked on the wrong thread.

Macv, I like your designs better than the Stern one that you just posted.
You posted it before and now I like it a bit better than the first time.

macv,
I was just responding to Oicu812 who was asking about accuracy of sq. footage and I am curious ,too.
By the way, great link!
LSST

macv, I do love the look of the Stern home, though the floor plan isn't really for me. I think I'd like the front door more centered (with a porch) and dh and I would like a separate living space (family room?) bumped off the back of the house somewhere (with lots of windows). Similar to the plan I've linked below by Garrell Assoc. I like the Garrell home below although the ext. may be a little too farmhousey for me and the kitchen isn't on an ext. wall. It seems like whenever I find a plan I sort of like, something is amiss. So I end up trying to move everything around in my head or on graph paper. We built our current home almost 3 years ago and we pretty much drew it up ourselves on graph paper then took it to a local architect and he gave us final plans to go from. I just didn't have a really good experience with him though, since he didn't offer any advice - just plugged in what we had and that was that.

Our current home is a basic ranch w/basement with the wide open great room, kitchen, dining combo. But with kids, we're finding that it's a little TOO open for us. If the kids are running around crazy, we're all in the same room together and it gets very loud - hence we'd like a little more separation in our next home :) I'm not too picky about prestige or anything, although I do really respect great architecture. I just have a feeling someone like that would be WAY out of our price range.

thanks for all your feedback - are you an architect yourself?

Here is a link that might be useful: Garrell Assoc

Our house is in progress. It has a lot of the same specs you describe.

Here is a link that might be useful: House with Same Specs as Described

sandiandjerry - I'd love to see your plan but the link is taking me to blogger and I can't access it for some reason.

macv - thanks for your help, but I guess I'm just not a purist to any particular style. I love certain looks, but if the floorplan isn't right, then I'll have to move on to something that is, kwim? I like the exteriors of shingle homes, but might need to mix it with a more country or cape cod interior, etc... I understand where you're coming from though and appreciate the advice.

It's a matter in interior volume. When a house gets too wide the roof pitch must be lowered to control volume. IMHO it is difficult to design a charming house with a low roof pitch since a Shingle Style can quickly become a Prairie Style. The hallmark of a Shingle Style is that that the roof and the exterior walls act together like a cloak of shingles with long rakes tying the stories together and gables/dormers and classical detailing peeking through the cloak and classical detailing with ganged windows and bays adding a note of elegance. The hallmark of the Craftsman and Prairie Styles is that the roof sits on the house like a lid with extended or decorated eave overhangs and no classical detailing.

To control the volume of a Shingle Style it is usually necessary to organize the plan in a relatively narrow main element with cross gables. If the house has a center beam/bearing wall the main stairway usually must be placed parallel to it which is a layout challenge. You can see all of this at play in Stern's plan.

What a great thread. I learned here that Shingle Style is my favorite style here--after cutting out and starring many picture of these. Great links and ideas. Thanks to all of you. We bought our land in east TN on Loudoun Lake, but putting off retirement (and building) a few more years because of this iffy economy. Sigh. Ah well, more time to learn from you all.

great info macv!

Is the stern plan available for purchase anywhere? Its not on southern living any longer. thanks

This is a VERY old thread and the house was designed over 20 years ago. Mr Stern, the architect, is a very prominent architect and was the Dean of the Architecture School at Yale (they have a tradition of having a Dean who is a working architect). If the house was designed to be built (without all the extras that give it charm) for $250,000 in 1994, today it would most likely be over $400,000 just to build it - probably closer to $500,000. It's an odd house upstairs - no closets in the bedrooms so they are called "offices". The LR and DR are actually quite small, as are the bedrooms - it just looks "big" from the outside. Prominent or not, I don't like the interior of the house at all!

Thank you Anglophilia for your comments! I was not looking at the date of the thread - definitely would not want to build for 500k!