In luxury apartment buildings and community residences, amenities are everything. Without a vast array of opportunities for residents to live in the ultimate luxury, the quality drops. With this in mind, developments have been finding new and creative ways to elevate the standard of luxury living when it comes to amenities — and it’s through art itself.
Luxury residential buildings are fostering creativity for their child residents. Through different art-focused programs and amenities, the opportunities for children to explore their imagination are now limitless.
Photo courtesy of LoveWell Creative
Photo courtesy of THREE MARKS
The luxury Manhattan condo 277 Fifth Avenue, in partnership with the global luxury service brand LIVunLtd, is providing opportunities for children to participate in music classes, dance classes, arts and crafts. The playful atmosphere in the rooms inspires children to have fun and get creative.
Meanwhile, at the Brickell City Centre in Miami, the Reach and Rise luxury condominiums have installed amenities for children with an artistic twist. While some walls have screens for interactive games, others are blank and allow for children to write and draw. The colorful furniture allows for creativity to flourish.
Photo courtesy of Swire Properties Inc
Photo courtesy of Miller Hare
But these amenities aren’t always exclusive to children — at 1000M in Chicago, the residents will have access to both a music conservatory and a sound studio. The soundproof room is perfect for anyone looking to advance their skills or begin learning a new instrument. Either way, both children and adults can now feel artistic and inspired.
Raise your IQ as you indulge in these one-of-a-kind amenities. Communities are constantly coming up with new ways to create impressive amenities for their residents and guests, and these communities are doing just that.
From studying the stars through a luxury telescope, to hands-on learning from conservationists, residents at these communities are offered the chance to learn from the comfort of their own homes.
Study the Stars in Style
As you are perched atop a protected hilltop, set up a telescope and take in the stars at Headwaters — a tech-inflected home community developed by Freehold Communities.
The structure has been carefully deconstructed to become the setting for a stargazing amphitheater. Astronomers from the University of Texas frequently gather with Headwaters families to create a high-touch, outdoor classroom for residents to learn about celestial events — eclipses, meteor showers and supermoons.
Located in Dripping Springs, Texas, the Headwaters integrates 1,000 homes within expanses of natural habitat, eight miles of walking trails, as well as five protected hilltops.
Photos courtesy of Freehold Communities
Learn from Onsite Conservationists
With thousands of acres of unspoiled nature and 32 miles of riverfront, Palmetto Bluff offers a natural classroom where teachers — onsite conservationists and guides — run tours, classes, workshops and field trips open to all residents of the luxury, South Carolina community. Learn about life oaks, wild turkeys and other Low Country flora and fauna on bike, horseback or on foot, or head to the May River to explore by kayak, canoe or paddle board.
Looking to learn about the area’s rich history? Onsite archeologist Dr. Mary Socci leads artifact hunting expeditions from past communities dating back 12,000 BC and even leads cemetery walks that include past inhabitants’ pets.
Photos courtesy of Palmetto Bluff
Explore Surrounding Nature
At the Walden Monterey, the luxury agrihood where expansive lots will start in the $5 millions, developers are launching a tree-naming app described as “Pokémon go meets Google Sky, but for trees.” The goal? To increase residents’ interactions with nature through gamification.
Focus on Sustainability and Environmentalism
Located along Ecuador’s Pacific Riviera in the town of Puerto Caya, Oceanside Farms allows residents to gather for onsite lectures and TedX presentations focusing on sustainability and environmentalism.
Discover Astronomy from an Astronomer
For those interested in astronomy, Mountain Shadows is the place to be. The destination offers the Cocktails Under the Cosmos Series and the Spirited Sipping Seminars. Astronomy lessons take place at the hotel’s Camelback Overlook rooftop deck, offered to both hotel guests and residents of the community. Each astronomer-led event features a signature cocktail themed around that month’s astrological sign, which can be seen brighter in the valley due to its low light pollution and dramatic desert backdrop.
Vinotemp, the recognized leader in architectural wine storage solutions and cooling technology, has announced the exclusive addition of the VinCave Wine Cellar 200 and the VinCave Wine Cellar 450 to its wine storage offering. The unique, modular, underground wine cellar solutions are designed to leverage the cool temperatures found underground to properly – and efficiently – cellar up to 450 bottles of wine.
“Since Vinotemp’s founding over three decades ago we have been dedicated to designing, creating and discovering unique products that add style and next-level function to wine storage,” says India Hynes, CEO of Vinotemp. “We’re excited to exclusively offer VinCave Wine Cellars to wine connoisseurs as it is a testament to Vinotemp’s commitment to providing products that enhance the design aesthetic and functionality of wine storage.”
The minimalist, European-designed VinCave Wine Cellars are engineered to utilize the cooler, consistent temperatures found underground to properly store wine. This environmentally friendly, efficiently engineered design requires the cellars be installed on a flat floor surface at either ground or basement level.
The VinCave Wine Cellar 200 features a glass covering and a push-button elevation function that raises the wine collection above ground for easy access, while the VinCave Wine Cellar 450 features a sleek glass door that both covers and opens electrically to allow access to the cellar. Both versions feature a ventilation system and 100 percent stainless steel chassis and frames.
Photo courtesy of Vinotemp.
Increasingly, real estate developers are placing value on contemporary architecture.
By Camilla McLaughlin
For years, innovative designs from starchitects have been the focus for new buildings in New York and Miami. Now, developers of single family communities are employing the same approach with developments and communities organized around a single architectural style. In some instances, notable architects are also on board to create a statement as bold as those broadcast by dramatic urban towers. In others, the architectural vision builds on research into consumer priorities. In every instance, the architecture is taking prominence.
In Nevada, the premise for a new ultra luxury development, Ascaya, is a specific architectural style, in this instance contemporary and specifically Desert Contemporary. It’s a vernacular characteristic of the Southwest and especially fitting for a project located in the foothills above Henderson, nine miles south of Las Vegas. Six notable architects have been commissioned to bring unique expressions of desert contemporary architecture to fruition. The designs are visionary, offering varied takes on the aesthetic combined with innovative construction, energy-efficient features and floor plans that align with lifestyle aspirations. Two inspiration homes are finished, three are under construction and a design from Pritzker winner Richard Meir & Partners is nearing completion.
A new community in Palm Springs, Linea, takes a cue from the area’s legendary modernist ties, offering fresh interpretations of the iconic style. Residences here appear as works of art rather than manifestations of an architectural style. For this project, developer Andrew Adler and architect Anthony Poon drew inspiration from abstract sculptures and Bauhaus painters. Homes rise as white cubist forms against the craggy backdrop of surrounding mountains. Stark white facades punctuated with soft hued doors, sculpted massing and a linear composition offer a fresh new take that pushes the modern aesthetic to a new level of expression.
Located on a terraced hillside setting in Henderson, Nevada is Axis, a new community developed by Pardee Homes, a member of the Tri Pointe Group, offering designs with elevations that are as much contemporary as they are transitional with modern floor plans. The architecture is forward-looking. The homes in Axis also integrate outdoor courtyards, balconies and rooftop decks in ways that transcend typical limitation of indoors versus outdoors. Strada, another new community, is geared toward millennials with its own individual architectural expression that grew out of consumer research of this demographic.
Ten years ago, it was difficult to build a contemporary home, except for Modern Tuscan, in Las Vegas unless it was on an individual lot outside of a development. The Ridges was the first to allow contemporary architecture and another recent development, The Summit in Summerlin, also leans toward contemporary.
“There is definitely a move in the direction of contemporary, and it’s started to come down to the higher-end, semi-custom tract homes. That’s had a big push. It hasn’t really come down to the starter home, yet. That’s the next wave,” says Eric Strain, CEO of Assemblage Studio and an architecture professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
For the first inspiration home at Ascaya, completed this spring, SB Architects drew on its experience with resort and hospitality properties and approached the home as a smaller scale resort. “We see a lot of crossover with private estates wanting more resort amenities, and hotels yearning to feel more intimate,” says Matt Page, LEED AP, vice president at SB Architects.
The home presents as a well-orchestrated composition of simple massing and long horizontal planes. The impression is one of balance, symmetry and subtle elegance. A series of clerestory windows add to the sense that the roof seems to float above the structure. Private-entry courtyards transition to a generous great room and kitchen that take in dynamic vistas of the Las Vegas Strip extending across the valley to distant peaks. Expanses of glass and telescoping walls and doors make inside and outside appear as a single space, incorporating the desert setting into the experience. Extensive decks and patios are augmented by a roof deck with a fireplace. Also accessed from a private sitting area tucked behind the great room, it becomes a privileged escape to watch the west’s technicolor displays at sunset.
Flexible spaces enable the home to be eminently adaptable to a variety of settings and experiences. The connectivity among different rooms and areas of the home is striking. Textural elements and extensive use of warm woods tame the volume, so even a solitary visitor sitting in front of the fireplace does not feel overwhelmed. According to Page, such chemistry doesn’t happen by accident. Instead, it’s the result of thoughtful design, which begins with the site and then filters down to the smaller architectural details.
Photos courtesy of Shay Vilich photographer / Shapiro & Sher Group / Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada Properties and David Blank
A new take on Mid-Century Modern, Carlisle at Parasol Park in Irvine, California.
A second inspiration home, orchestrated by Marmol Radziner, a design-build firm based in Los Angeles, was completed this summer. A green roof frames the entry, which is shielded from the street. Architects paired bronze anodized aluminum panels, vertical grain western red cedar and local natural stone with warm and rustic materials and color palettes to reflect the desert landscape.
Sustainability is part of the Modern vision. The home designed by Hoogland Architecture, the only local firmed tapped to design an inspiration home, incorporates passive strategies such as deep overhangs oriented to the solar patterns of the site and aggressive day lighting. Even the infinity pool is incorporated as a design element and reflects the lights of the city at night.
Another home, created by the firm Lake/Flato, employs rammed earth walls, which anchor and blend the structure into the surrounding terrain as well as insulate against Nevada’s intense heat. The construction is aligned with the firm’s belief that design and sustainability are inseparable, part of a place-based approach that merges the building with the surrounding landscape.
Also opening in July was the resort’s $25 million clubhouse designed by the Scottsdale firm, Swaback Partners. A dramatic copper-covered porte cochere previews a building that melds stone, copper, glass and artwork into venue in which the architecture energizes as much as the activities.
From high-end enclaves intended for a rarified echelon to communities that appeal to a wider demographic, architecture is becoming much-desired eye candy.
Photo courtesy of Jim Doyle, Applied Photography LLC
