Building houses for cars

Those examples look so awkward (but yeah, it’s a car in the living room) . Can’t imagine living in any of them, but then again, I can’t see myself owning a car in a foreseeable future. Must admit that it’s a fun poke at people who like to hang their expensive bicycle in the livingroom.


I bet youve seen this too. Only missing a fireman’s pole.

Interesting building codes they have… the only thing I would add to the ambiance of Schubert structure would be the air/water/grease hose reels on the ceiling. No handrails around that opening?! Must be a lift

Recently sold with the house (included) for $5.2M USD

… The strange part was that the coach house was in the backyard of the main house. A little too strange for me.

Where else would you put a coach house Mr.? With a daily production volume of roughly 30+ pounds of solid, and 2.5 gallons of liquid waste per horse, per day, I sure wouldn’t want it attached to the main house. And certainly not in front of the residence. Sheds a whole new understanding of the term “muck out a stall” doesn’t it.

edit - paragraph fragment; Recently sold with the house (included) for $5.2M USD - Ferris Bueller’s garage…

Great post on the Carriage Houses Lmo. Here in the Twin Cities there are still quite a few left in the older neighborhoods. Houses where the likes of the Pillsbury’s and James J. Hill’s of the era lived. Local codes today don’t allow new carriage houses on existing property though. I’m sure there’s a way around it, but…

I should take some pictures of some of the houses around here (Little Italy, Cleveland) that were built behind other houses. Not renovated carriage houses, regular homes built in the backyards of regular homes. It’s the damndest thing.

Back to the topic of houses built around garages for cars, I really like the townhouse Mo-i posted. Garage is still in the front of the house, but recessed and even in the shadows a bit. What really gets me about that first house in the thread is how the garage is the most forward element, first in the visual hierarchy. I actually think garages in the front can be good for efficiency (though maybe not as efficient as some shared garages?), but is it that hard to just put them down a notch visually? Even the home I grew up in (a 70s split level) had the garage forward just 5 feet or so - it probably would look much more inviting to people if the actual dwelling was 5 feet in front instead.

I personally don’t like houses with driveways to garages in back. In too many cases, between the longer driveway, large swatch of concrete behind the house in front of the garage, and the garage itself it seems more of the property ends up being used for cars instead of the living quarters or any sort of lawn or garden. So hardly anyone around here has a back yard, they just have back concrete (which is good for basketball, I guess).

One of my old bosses was a huge motorcycle lover… He had a side business importing foreign bikes by the container-full then he’d sell them in the US. As part of his “business,” he build a 2 story modernist building in his yard that was like a motorcycle museum to store them all. To “sell” the bikes… haha. The whole thing blows me away to this day.

Hey guys,

fellow carlovers and garage nerds. Here are some additional pictures I took throughout the weekend.
What you see here was collected within two city districts that were developed between 1885 and 1935
(ca.) in a the Rhine Area in Germany.

Let’s start in the 1880 ies, when Horses still ruled the roads. Most people were walking by feet or had to rely on
the services of the first trains or horse carts that were in line operation.

Some guys were more fortunate than others and happened to have their own horse carriages along with the horses
and the men who opperated the lot:

This manor was built in 1910 for a wealthy industrialist. Nowadays within the main building there are 4 appartments and one in the old carriage house. This was concieved as one family home in the “old english style” and was already seen as “traditional” at it’s built date.

Remarkably the basement is still used for the cars, whereas most of comparable buildings are
completely revised.

Like this one in another part of town. The main building is situated on the corner of two main roads, which was rather
prestigious at the built date but much of an inconvinience only 30 years later:

In the background the old carriage and chauffeurs house can be seen. The next picture shows how it looks today:

As you see it was developed into a rather normal family home with a large kitchen where the carriage entry once was:

Another example from the opposite of the road. The old dwelling for the horses is only visible on the horizon. (As horses had the tendency to be a little unhygienic and smelly) For convinience a garage was added much nearer to the main building in later years:

At the same time as the second manor this one was built:

I don’t think that this use of the entrance was intended by the architect in 1890…

Only 15 years later the now horseless cars were already taken in consideration when errecting a place:

What you see here is a neat small house that is connected to he main building. The chauffeurs family could live there.
(And further personell like the maid, also) The cars were to be stored and prepared next to the main building what meant,
that the distance between the two buildings was much narrower if you had a horseless carriage.

Another solution out of the same years 1900 to 1915:

Detail:

This was not the norm during those days. The needs of personal transportation were not commonly covered with a car and a chauffeur. Even the best earning chaps mostly had to walk short distances by feet.
Thus until the 1920ies the majority of the fanciest villas were built without taking the car into consideration.

I will add further posts to this thread following the developement through the years.

Have a nice Monday everyone!

yours mo-i

Thanks mo-i!

Question: Am I the only one that wants a relief of a Toyota Camry somewhere on my house?

Question: Am I the only one that wants a relief of a Toyota Camry somewhere on my house?

I was really tempted to blurt out, “Yes” … but I won’t

I am interested in the context of that relief mo-i. If you zoom in on it, the right rear tire appears to be climbing over the raised block under the vehicle. There is a forced perspective involved, but was just wondering what the “block shape” might imply since that shape does not appear in the reliefs on either side…

Also, do you know what the owls on the top of the portico at the right might represent (relative to the house)? In most western cultures it is “wisdom”, but…

Lew,

wow, you are really digging into the details here and you might have found something fascinating that
many would have overlooked:

Sadly there is lots of information about the architect Heinrich Plange who designed that building, but I
could not find useful information about the client. There is no hint that he might have been a medical
doctor or anything “wise” like that. The Owls are protecting the entrance of the chauffeurs house, mind you.
The elements beneath them could be vine grapes and acorns if I am not mislead. But the stunning thing is,
that on the main building of the manor much less decoration was used. There are only baroque floral
motives around the windows, which I read as vine leaves.

So, the chauffeur gets the owls and the splendid spender gets the vine leaves…?

I must really admit, that I do not know enough about the circumstances here. Might have been that the
client ordered just that. Maybe he didn’t.

All the best.

yours mo-i

you are really digging into the details here

It’s my repressed Minor in Art History surfacing … :wink:

mo-i, thanks for sharing those great images.

LG, Lew

I’ve always loved the idea of having a sportscar visible from the living room. The idea that you can admire its beauty all the time. When you’re driving it most the time you only see the interior. I love Tony Stark’s garage from Iron Man

I agree.

Personally, I would prefer to have the garage on the side or in the back. Not only it stores the vehicles, the garage is a work space for me. It’s nice to have a little privacy, so work can be done with the door open.

As for being able to see the vehicles from inside the living areas, I have mixed feelings about that. While I enjoy looking at cars, I consider cars to be objects that are kept outside. The Japanese part of me likes to keep certain separation between outside, and inside, especially in a private environment where I might eat and sleep. Tony Stark’s garage in the Ironman movie is awesome however, but the environment is more of a workshop than his living room.

Yeah, I don’t think my girlfriend would love having the car in the living room. Bit of a masculine fantasy…

When I was a small boy in Wisconsin, there was a guy that had a motorcycle in his living room. It was visible from the street in his front window. I’m still jealous.

When I was a small boy in Wisconsin, there was a guy that had a motorcycle in his living room.

Whaaa…?!? So, yera tellin’ me everybody don’t keep the’r scooter in th’ livin’ room

My buddy Duane Aushermann was the first BMW Motorrad dealer on the West Coast.
His 1955 R23/3 - soon to be mounted on the wall.




Don’t ya just love “art”? All I could ever afford was one to ride…

So when you’re on a trip, does that mean you leave your bike out in the weather?