Building the Future: Must-have home design choices that are timeless
A well-designed home is more than just a place to live–it’s a reflection of personal style, a sanctuary and, of course, a big investment. Thoughtful details transform rooms into sophisticated spaces tailored for modern living. Today’s most sought-after features blend aesthetics with functionality, creating homes that are as stunning as they are livable.
Keep reading for insights from local home builders on must-have elements that define luxurious living.
Natural Materials
For timeless appeal, luxury home builders are embracing natural materials and warm wood tones. “We’re trying to use as much natural product as possible, whether that be natural brick or stone, anywhere there’s an opportunity,” says Brandon Craft, owner of Craft Realty, Interiors and Homes.
Russell Alleman, president and founder of Manchac Homes, also highlights the shift toward natural materials like wood, stone and glass, noting a move from glossy, polished countertops to honed natural stone. Incorporating these elements creates a more grounded living experience, he says.
In addition to their effortless elegance, natural materials are typically lower-maintenance options, especially for the exterior features of a home. “Everything that we use is a mix of masonry, which would be brick or stone, and then Hardie, which is a concrete-based product. I want to minimize the time spent fixing things,” Craft says. He points to the soffit–the space between the gutter and exterior brick wall of the home–which is typically made of wood but is Hardie in Craft Homes, which is much more durable against regular pressure washing than wood and has a far longer life.
Outdoor Living
While brick, stone and wood tones create a natural connection to the outdoors, local home builders are taking it a step further by blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor living. Both Alleman and Craft agree that an air-conditioned and bug-free outdoor living space is a must-have.
A dedicated HVAC unit and solar mesh screen make the space comfortable year-round, no matter the weather. “All of the homes that we build have screens and a dedicated HVAC unit for the outdoor areas,” Alleman explains. “These screens not only keep out the dust and the bugs but also, if we use the 90% solar mesh screens, it actually keeps the conditioned air in the outdoor living space.”
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Craft points to the dining table across from the patio furniture set in the covered patio space at a recently completed home on Highland Road. “We’ve got a similar setup to this at home, and we are dining room people for dinner. We never sit in the indoor dining room. Dinner happens every night sitting out here,” he says. The area is complete with a brick fireplace and quartzite floors–a natural stone that is cool to the touch, easy to clean and offers the right amount of grit needed to ensure safety.
Fortified Homes
Thanks to rising insurance premiums and dwindling options for homeowners’ insurance in Louisiana, fortified homes are becoming a popular option. To qualify, a home must meet fortified home construction standards, which makes this process something that must be done during construction, explains Alleman. Fortified homes are structurally stronger and more resilient to severe weather, which reduces insurance premiums and offers superior protection for families. “That’s at the top of my list, and we are building them more and more often,” Alleman says. “I would say about 80% of our new projects in the pipeline will be fortified homes.”
Built-In Energy Efficiency
With all of this connection to nature, the focus is more squarely on reducing a home’s energy footprint and improving sustainability. While the sunshine and beautiful views are welcome, the heat, humidity and winter’s chill are not. For these local home builders, energy efficiency all comes back to the quality of the insulation.
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Increased glazing—using windows and glass to enhance indoor-outdoor connections—is on the rise. Though energy-efficient, these windows still allow sunlight in, adding to the home’s heat load and increasing demand on air conditioning, Alleman explains.
“So what we’re doing is on any exterior walls, and sometimes even the roof, is we’re using polyiso-foam, which is basically a rigid foam insulation,” he says. “We see it now more and more often in our custom homes that have a lot of surface area of glass on the exterior walls, where we will try to make the portions of the wall that are not windows or glass. We try to max out the energy efficiency on those walls.”
Craft has found that has found that high-efficiency roll-back insulation remains the most effective way to improve energy efficiency in large homes, calling it the tried-and-true method. “We keep coming back to what you used to see on TV, the Pink Panther commercial,” he laughs. “But we’ve found that I’m not as reliant on the installer and how good of a job they’re doing with spraying and whether they’re ready to go home that day or whatnot. Instead, I can see how that product is installed, and so the efficiency on a large home has done quite well.”
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