It’s relatively easy to put an addition on a house. But what about subtracting from a house? Above is an illustration of a home being built from the ground up on a dry, 9,500-square-foot lot on Hibiscus Island in Miami Beach. This is a beautiful, two-story contemporary house, designed by EAV Architect and Daniel Latour Interior Design, and built by Latour. It has 5,687 square feet of enclosed space (under air conditioning), with a four-car garage that has its own elevator. There are five bedrooms. The master suite, on the second floor, is 1,200 square feet with a 500-square-foot balcony. The suite includes two walk-in closets, two vanities, an enclosed toilet and bidet, a two-person bath tub and a two-person shower. All parts of the master suite have a view of the water. There’s a 2,500-square-foot entertainment terrace on the roof with its own kitchen. And the fittings throughout are superluxe: Dornbracht, Duravit, Axor, Subzero, Miele, Viking. Yes, it’s beautiful. But let’s consider some numbers. In 1950, the average size of a new home that year was 983 square feet; 96 percent of the homes built had one bathroom or less. That was when the average size of the American family was four. Today the average family is three people, and the average size of a new home is 2,434 square feet; 39 percent of those homes have four or more bedrooms. The house above, at 5,687 square feet, is at the upper end of the spectrum, but there are new houses in Florida that are 10,000 square feet or more. How about cutting it down to something more managable, like 2,000 square feet? So sit down to your computers (the specs and floorplans are on our Web site, www.floridainsideout.com, under Competition # 3), and start remodeling. We’ll give you just one hint. Often the next big trend is the one thing that no one is doing anymore. Let’s hear your solutions to whittling this house down to a manageable size, and making it appropriate for the sunny life in South Florida. (Don’t forget to make it hurricane proof, too.) The contest will end June 15, and the winning entries will be announced in our September-October issue.
