New American Home benefits from feminine touch

Source: Technology Digital

Date :31/05/2007 14:15:28

Carmen Dominguez brings her sense of timeless elegance to the premier NAHB show home .

By David Weldon

The American dream home just got a lot more … feminine.

That, at least, is the goal of homebuilder Carmen Dominguez, who was responsible for this year’s New American Home show home, unveiled at the International Builder’s Show.

Under the direction of Carmen Dominguez, president of Homes by Carmen Dominguez in Orlando, Fl, this year’s home uses female desires in a home and themes centered on timeless elegance as the motivations behind every room, feature and design element incorporated into the finished product.

Those motivators are hallmarks for Dominguez, who is known in her local market as “the elegant builder.”

Only eight years old, Homes by Carmen Dominguez is a small building company in the Orlando and Heathrow market. The company offers high-end custom homes, often with a European flavor. That is true of the show home, which carries a Tuscan theme throughout.

The New American Home is one of several show homes on display each year at the annual IBS show, now the largest trade show in the country. This year’s event was held in January at the Orlando Convention Center, and attracted thousands of builders, architects, designers, and product manufacturers from across the country. While the other show homes are assembled onsite at the IBS event, the New American Home is always the showpiece home, built in a local neighborhood close to the event, and showcasing the talents of local architects, builders and designers.

During the IBS show, tours are conducted daily to the home, and it always generates a lot of excitement with local and national media. Builders and manufacturers compete for the opportunity to participate in the project, due to the exposure the home brings to their products and services.

The show served to further shine the spotlight on Carmen Dominquez, who is as unique in the building trade as she hopes her home designs are among her peers. In an industry defined by house framers, roofers and heavy equipment operators, she is one of the few female home builder company owners in the country. She also happens to be the first female president of the local home builders association, and the first Hispanic president of that association.

According to Michael Williams, general manager of Homes by Carmen Dominguez, Carmen’s female and Hispanic influences are definitely noticeable against the designs of her local male peers, and are most evident in the overall mood of the home as one passes from room to room.

“As you pass through the front door, her sense of color, of detailing, and the flow-through of the house are what make it stand out,” Williams says.

As touchy-feely a thing as it is to define, Williams says it truly is the feminine touch that differentiates the houses designed by Carmen Dominquez. And he says that was what helped attract the NAHB to select her company for the project.

Explaining feminine touches in practical terms, Williams says it involves items such as closet designs, laundry locations, kitchen size and central placements, and overall mood created by the use of warm and inviting colors, and accented by strategic lighting. It also includes more openness in the layout, high ceilings, so-called soft lines, and features that invoke a sense of timeless beauty.

As important as the inside features to the home, choices in landscape design are equally important, Williams says. That means carrying the same sense of flow to the grounds that is designed into the house.

Perhaps the most important aspect of designing the new American dream home, William says, is involving the home buyer in the design process to a greater degree, something that he says Dominguez takes close to heart. Architects and builders should listen more closely to the needs and wants of their clients, he says, and that includes all family members. “Everyone should feel that they are part of the overall result.”