You didn’t know it, but the drive through the streets of your neighborhood each day is a treasure trove of hopes and dreams. Every house along your route to work, to school, to the grocery store, is telling you the story of The Woodlands and the people who’ve called it home.
“My dad moved us here in 1992,” says Greg Burkett, owner and principal architect of Burkett Architecture, a custom design firm in The Woodlands. “The population was around 33,000, and Panther Creek was the center of activity. There was a small town feeling.”
One style of home that became ubiquitous in The Woodlands for a few decades, beginning in the late 1970s, was from the building company Life Forms. They were homes designed to blend with the surrounding untamed landscape, says Greg, almost as if they had sprung from the forest floor. As The Woodlands continued to grow in population and prestige, the red brick, white-columned elegance of Georgian and Federal-style homes became popular in the 1990s, he says.
Architectural historians say that when we build our homes, we're reshaping the landscape and creating a new perspective. In some eras, that has meant a modest presence. In others it’s meant going big and bold.
Aaron Harris came to The Woodlands in 2000 to work as the real estate agent for The Woodlands Development Corporation on the sale of the initial lots in Carlton Woods, Sterling Ridge. “I started out in a construction trailer at Woodlands Parkway and Carlton Woods Drive,” he recalls. Buyers were squired around in 4-wheel-drive trucks to look at homesites. The lots sold like hotcakes, he says, mostly to Woodlands homeowners who wanted to upgrade.
The Mediterranean Revival style of the Nicklaus clubhouse set the tone for homebuilding for years to come in Carlton Woods and other neighborhoods of The Woodlands, says Aaron, homes with tiled roofs, stucco exteriors, and portico entries.
Around the same time that Carlton Woods was coming into being, Lisa and Tom O’Neill were on the cusp of buying two older houses for sale in Grogan’s Mill, the original “village” of The Woodlands. Their daughter was 2 weeks old at the time, and they were looking far into the future, hoping to lease the homes out as an investment until the day they were ready to use one of the lots to build their dream house.
Flash forward to 2019: With their older son heading to college, and their daughter and younger son not far behind, the O’Neills set to work planning their “empty nest,” a modern-style home that would take them into retirement.
They enlisted the services of Houston architect Greg Swedberg to design a modern home that fit their lifestyle and the surrounding environment. (Fittingly, Greg’s grandfather worked for George Mitchell on planning and growing The Woodlands in the eighties, says Lisa.)
More people in The Woodlands are joining the O’Neills in choosing modern design elements when they build a new home. “Transitional and modern, that’s the trend we’re seeing now,” says Greg Burkett. Aaron Harris agrees, estimating that of the remaining lots being developed in Carlton Woods, Creekside, almost half will be modern-style homes, with low-pitched and flat roofs, clean lines, bright interiors, and a regular, rectangular layout. There are fewer arches, less molding, says Greg, and lots more windows, with the intent of living in the view.
In the O’Neill’s case, Lisa learned from their previous homes that some of the best views are found in upstairs rooms that have limited use. “The best views in our last home were in the kids’ playroom upstairs!” So against convention, the couple designed the second story as the heart of their new home and incorporated an elevator into the plan. With kitchen, den, and primary suite on the second floor, they would be living in privacy, among the trees, with loads of natural light and a magnificent treetop view.
The Modern movement is big right now, says Kevin Spearman, a home designer and longtime resident of The Woodlands. He prefers, however, to steer away from such terms. “Your home shouldn’t have a time label stamped on it.”
Good design principles make a home timeless–proper proportion and scale, use of natural light to its fullest potential, spaces that bring outdoor beauty into a home. Think of the most recent hotels in Las Vegas, says Kevin. “The new hotels don’t remind you of France, the Congo River, or Italy. They’re just cool.”
He points to the homes of East Shore, which he says was conceived as a pedestrian-friendly community with time-honored home styles based on sound design principles: Charleston rowhouses, Georgian, Spanish mission, French eclectic, Southern colonial.
The new Aria Isle at East Shore will continue the emphasis on timeless design, says Greg Burkett, with homes that are more transitional and modern in style. He has two homes in the works there now.
Build a house, and it becomes a canvas for the way we interact with a place and with each other: After many COVID-related slow-downs, the O’Neills finally settled into their new, modern home, and it wasn’t long before they realized they’d accomplished something special. “We felt like celebrities, so many people would take pictures. They were stopping and knocking on the door. I felt like a trend setter. So many people said to me, ‘This is so refreshing. I love what you’ve done--something different!’”
Pull Out Quote, p. 3:
Architectural historians says that when we build our homes, we're reshaping the landscape and creating a new perspective. In some eras, that has meant a modest presence. In others it’s meant going big and bold.
Pull Out Quote, p. 5:
Good design principles make a home timeless--proper proportion and scale, use of natural light to its fullest potential, spaces that bring outdoor beauty into a home.