Quote:
Originally Posted by Stu from NYC
We had a colonial in Va with garage on the lower level and access was to the side of the house. As a result needed larger driveway and house at larger footprint.
The developer would certainly not want that, wants more homes per acre not less.
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Yeah colonials are a whole nuther beast. Especially a center-hall colonial, where a garage really needs to be an add-on in the back, or you need another 1/8 acre strip beside the house just for the garage.
Raised ranches solve that problem by having the driveway lead straight into the garage, and if the house is "deep" enough toward the back, then a mudroom in the back of the garage leads to the steps to the den, and then a few more steps from there into the kitchen. Most of the neighborhood I grew up in had that layout. Ours was a split-level and we had a single-car detached garage added a few years after my parents bought the house.
The house I lived in before moving here was a ranch, with a single-car detached garage, but the driveway was off a road that was actually a right-of-way to the senior housing apartment complex behind us.
And at one point I lived in a late-1800's Victorian colonial with the stained glass window on the landing of the winding staircase, and a walk-in fireplace. I was a border, and occupied the mom's room while she was living in Greece. The property had a garage in the back that had been converted into a family friend's studio apartment.