Safety first, add grab bars, build ramps, and widen narrow doorways. Next is privacy, re-purpose rooms for family apartments, add an adu and zone uses to minimize noise intrusions.

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Seaside Florida, a unique New Town on the Gulf Coast of the Florida panhandle, has matured since its inception 30 years ago. Seaside was a New Urbanism concept community design that you can read about on the community website. I’m most interested today in the large number of Accessory Dwelling Units that have been built. They are used as vacation cottages and marketed through their website. On the whole the cottages are above garages and very attractive though varied within the community style. Take a look at some of them here.

Seaside Carriage House

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Here’s How!

Colorado Free University is hosting classes by Mike Kephart in July & August.  Each class includes a guided trip to a high mountain lake. To register go to; www.freeu.com; then select search for classes/register, then recreation and leisure, then recreation.  It’s classes # 7714A and B, The first class starts on July 13, 2011.

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80+ women live long lives in Chernobyl in spite of the danger from radiation, “Home” is that important in their lives?  The men died long ago but some 200 women survivors are now outliving their octogenarian counterparts outside the danger zone. (The Today Show, April 18, 2011)

Mike Kephart

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A Jan. 2011 survey, Conservation in the West, a bipartisan effort, revealed truths that our politics has all wrong.  81% of voters in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana and Utah believe that environmental laws should not be reduced in favor of oil and gas companies.  (as repotted in the Denver Post Sunday 4/17/11).  Yes we want jobs, but not at the expense of the very reason we live in these beautiful places.

Mike Kephart

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1 /31/10

Imprints are strong emotional experiences in our lives that have

“imprinted” themselves on our brain to become part of the tapestry of

memories that shape our responses to ideas in our living environment,

such as; comfort, safety, social status, happiness, fun, and the connection

with others. These “imprints” come into play when we think of, the home,

of our childhood neighborhood, or when we first experience a space new

to us, such as a renovated Loft in an urban setting or a new model home

in suburbia. Our reactions, influenced by our imprints, are gut level or

instinctual rather than the reasoned analysis of: location, home size, and

cost. Imprints can be either positive or negative.

If our imprints from the past were largely positive ones from an

experience of rural living, we might have a difficult time seeing that

contemporary downtown loft as an attractive place to live and the

suburban neighborhood, full of tightly spaced homes, could be as

unappealing to us as well. Changing our current imprints is difficult, so

our reactions to experiences will not easily change, but new imprints

are being formed every day as we learn and grow and these replace

those old imprints over time.

You can see why people often choose lifestyles similar to their parents

and are slow to turn to new ideas and forms of living, like lofts, or in the

case of someone who grew up in a city apartment and couldn’t imagine

living in a single family home much less a small town. It takes time to

learn to accept change and imprints, or the lack of them. They are some

of the reasons the design of our homes evolves so slowly, and new ideas

are greeted more with suspicion than acceptance. That’s how it’s been

with my neighbors and their suspicion of accessory dwellings. They say

they are concerned about parking, the potential shading of a neighbor’s

garden, or the design compatibility of the new additions to the

neighborhood architectural fabric. That’s what they say, but they may

be reacting instinctually to old imprints they still harbor within

themselves. Part of our job is to give them reason to develop new

positive imprints with beautiful efficient non‐intrusive backyard

cottages that they can point to with pride.

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