Eastshore & More--Exclusive Insight into Luxury Home Trends From South Florida’s Premier Architectural Firm

September 7, 2005 -- Coral Gables architecture and design firm, Eastshore Architects, offers insight into lavish living with these tips and trends on luxury home construction. Known for their elite clientele, which includes professional sports figures, politicians, celebrities and captains of industry, Eastshore Architects have an exclusive perspective when it comes to living large. President Luis Jauregui shares his knowledge on these emerging trends.

Biggest Splurges: We find that women are splurging on the kitchens and bathrooms. Eastshore has created extensive bathrooms with lounging areas, open closets and even small beverage refrigerators. Men are splurging on media rooms complete with built in storage and wiring for plasma televisions, satellite radio, iPod docking stations and hook-ups and more.

Average Square Footage: In South Florida, the average size of our projects is between 6,000 – 7,500 square feet, with a budget of $250-$300 per square foot and approximately 2-2.5 years to design, develop, permit and construct the home.

Smart Homes – With technology as it is today, 85% of clients are asking for structured wiring providing them with high-speed Internet access, networking capabilities, integrated lighting systems and distributed dvd/music systems that can send entertainment to every room in the house.

Tear Down vs. Renovate: Since South Florida’s real estate prices have boomed over the last few years, people are finding that it is easier and cost-appropriate to tear down and start over. The biggest area of growth is Key Biscayne.

Kitchens: Regionally and nationally, we see a trend for opening and expanding the kitchen space into a central station for the home with furniture and living areas combined. Clients want their home to function as both a formal and informal space to entertain. Therefore, we not only design a formal dining space to accommodate that request, we open the kitchen and family room to be one central, livable space.

Specialty Rooms: Eastshore has found that most clients are asking for an over the top media room. We work with the client to outfit the space into a mini-cinema. Additional requests have been for wine rooms and even a recording studio.

Pools: In South Florida, a pool is a must. We have noticed a trend to tile the surface of the pool with colored tile. Grey, navy blue and black are the most popular.

Fashion Colored Appliances: We help our clients select appliance packages that fit their needs and goals. We find that people are choosing more traditional Viking or Wolf stoves and stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator/freezers. Small, replaceable appliances, like blenders and toasters are featured more with color. We have some clients that have chosen glass front refrigerators but advise that unless you are obsessive about neatness, there might be a better option available.

Eastshore is a full service company offering complete architectural, engineering and interior design services. The firm also provides land planning, landscape design, lighting & sound design and construction supervision with offerings structured to cater to each client’s distinctive needs. Eastshore is able to tailor their services from a minimum set of construction documents to a complete set of plans and specifications, defining every aspect of a project down to the slightest detail. For more information about Eastshore Architects, please visit www.eastshore.net.

Editor’s Note: Luis Jauregui and Ignacio Zabaleta are available to provide expert opinions for your architecture/design/real estate articles. To schedule an interview with Eastshore’s principals or to learn more about the firm, please call Rebecca Kollaras at 305-754-5949.