Green Homes Las Vegas Undressed

Luxury Homes in Las Vegas

Sun West Custom Homes (The Ridges) 2009

Luxury homes in Las Vegas are as plentiful as are the designs and character that have been built into them. Some are strikingly beautiful and unique while others are often just large boxes with high ceilings and little character.

Signature Custom Homes (McDonald Highlands) 2002

This got me thinking about the time I spent in the School of Architecture at the University of Washington. The vision was to create new structures using imagination, new materials and technologies in the building of homes. Sadly, most builders continued to build what the client wanted rather than build something new that the public would come to see as a better alternative.

Slade Development (Red Rock Country Club) 2009

You can see from the above photos that the creative mind is still at work in Las Vegas!

When I was still in school I visited Taliesin West. Built by Frank Lloyd Wright, this complex was designed as a school for architects. Students, at the time that I was there, learned everything from operating construction equipment, framing to architectural design.

There is a beauty and grace to this complex. The buildings and the landscape show a balance and a harmony of form and color.

I remember Frank Lloyd Wright and how his vision of wide-open living spaces helped to coax Americans out of their boxlike houses. The homes that he designed used a variety of materials; he would create a palate of color and textures that brought warmth to the homes that he built.

Frank Lloyd Wright architecture – Arthur B. Heurtley House (1902)

He utilized the natural environment of the site and brought nature into the home. Wright embraced glass in his organic designs.  He would use strings of glass panes along whole walls; creating light screens to join together solid walls. This created a balance between the light and air of glass and the solid and hard nature of the walls.

Fallingwater, which was completed in 1937, is an example of how he uses a rich and lively environment and incorporates it into the design of a home.

His style was unique and his creative design work has withstood the test of time.

He was quoted as saying to his Fallingwater client “I want you to live with the waterfall, not just to look at it, but for it to become an integral part of your lives.”

I plan on writing a series of articles about our custom homebuilders here in Las Vegas. This will be an attempt to uncover how their visions took hold and their plans for the future of homebuilding here in Las Vegas.