The day has come…you’ve bought yourself a beautiful downsloping lot with a fabulous view. The question now becomes “what do I put on it?”
Aside from more obvious requirements like how many bedrooms you require, whether you want a great room or a living room/dining room, or how square feet you need, a downsloping lot has certain other unique characteristics that should be considered. First of all, how much does the lot fall?
A lot that has only four feet of fall within the footprint of the home has different requirements than one that falls twelve feet or even twenty.
For the former, you should consider a level-lot plan , like the Greenspire, adapted to the slope of the lot with pony walls (shortened walls, unlike a full-height wall that might connect one full floor to another).
For the latter, the best solution is to use a daylight basement home plan – one that has a floor below the main that allows you to walk out at grade level from the rear of the home (hence the other term – walk out basement.)
Examples of this type of plan include the Dawson, the Brackenbury, and the Norcutt. Secondly, if the lot has any side-to-side slope in addition to the front-to-rear, consider the orientation of the garage when selecting your home plan; at checkout, plans can be ordered reversed, or mirrored, from the orientation you see presented on this site.
Typically the garage should be positioned on the high side of the lot to prevent the driveway from sloping too steeply downward into your garage, and also to simplify construction and excavation. The added challenges of building a home on a hillside will be worth it; some of the most beautiful homes in the world are built on sloping lots.
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Christine Cooney
Christine has over a decade of experience as a house plan and floor plan expert. Outside of providing her expertise to customers to help them find and build their dream homes, her passion and knowledge of the home building industry allows Christine to guide families and builders through all of the important steps from finding plans to building custom homes that meet the expectations of today’s new home owner. Christine’s years of knowledge of the diverse trends and needs of the modern homeowner has made her into an authoritative and trusted voice in the online house plan community..