A garage is something that most of us probably take for granted. But if our cars had to stay outside during weather extremes, we’d appreciate them more. A customer of mine has been looking for a home in an area where most of the homes have garages, but maybe a fifth of the homes do not. Of the ones that do, most of them are detached garages that stand alone from the home. That’s just the way they built them back then in this neighborhood which was developed between 1925 to about 1945. I was thinking that the detached garage was probably a carry-over from earlier days when carriage houses and stables were located separate from the house. When the horseless carriage came along, it went in it’s barn too. The car evolved then into such an integral part of our culture and daily life…and the convenient access and use of them made way for attached garages, which are here to stay.
If a home does not have a garage, it is definitely harder to sell. Not that it won’t sell without a garage, but a lot of people will pass on it to find one that does. So it reduces the chances of a sale. If you look at an old home built before 1950, chances are the garage is not visible from the front…just the lines of the home itself. Now it’s not uncommon to see a home design where the garage door is probably the most prominent feature of the front facade. Most of that is because the architect or builder has to figure out how to fit both home and garage on a lot that’s not real wide. The garage door can take up a third or more of the front elevation. A side-load or rear-load garage solves that design issue, but a larger lot that accommodates the driveway and turning area costs more, raising the overall price of the home.
I was driving around recently, saw this garage and had to snap a photo. As garages go, I really like the look of this one. What car wouldn’t want to call this home?
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