Asheville has never rested on its architectural laurels, abundant as they are. Beyond Art Deco and Craftsman, the city has long embraced contemporary, too. (A prime example is the Weizenblatt House in North Asheville, built by Marcel Breuer.) Rising local architects and residential designers are increasingly conversant in “mountain modern” — houses marked by clean lines and warmed by natural materials.
During the Architectural Tour of Homes presented by Modern Asheville Real Estate, in partnership with Atlanta’s MA! Design is Human (formerly Modern Atlanta), fans of contemporary can see five recently built local homes. Both “MA” companies promote site-sensitive ecological construction.
Modern Asheville Real Estate, owned by Troy Winterrowd and Kelly Erin-Spinney, began as a lifestyle blog focusing on smart design. It now encompasses a full-service brokerage for homes that adhere to the group’s design principles, and has collaborated with Modern Atlanta for two years.
One of the featured homes for 2017 has already collected a bouquet of awards, including the 2016 Gold Nugget Award of Merit, bestowed by the Pacific Coast Building Conference. The nearly 5,000-square-foot home on Elk Mountain was designed by Jason Weil (Retro + Fit Design). “The Privé,” built in 2015, is one of three homes in a new neighborhood named Ciĕl, just off Elk Mountain Scenic Highway. The south-facing, NC Green-certified home’s most striking feature is its cantilevered master-bedroom suite, sheltering one of three decks providing sweeping views.
Some of Asheville’s most prestigious firms are represented on the tour: Samsel Architects shows a wood-and-stone home in Walnut Cove in Arden, and Carlton Edwards Architects contributes a modern renovation on Mayflower Drive with views of downtown. A SPARC Design project on Beaucatcher Mountain is an example of modern’s pressing prerogative: “utiliz[ing] a small square footage in an urban environment,” according to Winterrowd.
Another project, designed by Mountain Sun Builders and Rusafova-Markulis, is in the new Shelburne Woods development in West Asheville. The sustainable modern home will be the first of nine that back up to a new greenway. Although all the homes on the tour were chosen for their thoughtful design approach in the modern-mountain vernacular, the Rusafova-Markulis/Mountain Sun home, in particular, “will set a new design standard” in that neighborhood, say Winterrowd and Erin-Spinney.
The Modern Asheville Real Estate architecture tour happens Saturday, June 3, 10am-4pm. For ticket information and directions, call 828-552-4811 or see modernasheville.com.
Corrections: Privé did not win a merit award from the AIA, as stated in a previous version of this article. Jason Weil is a residential designer, not an architect, as also stated in the original article. CH+G regrets the errors.