We had a preliminary planning review meeting with the city Planning Director on Tuesday morning. He’s a nice guy, a straight shooter. So straight, in fact, that he was willing to share pretty some strong (and amusing) opinions about a few of the newer houses in town. . . Opinions we agree with! And he also expressed his disdain for the proliferation of “barnitechture” around Napa valley, and seemed relieved that we weren’t proposing to build more of it.

This would be an example of “barnitechture”:

That one’s not too bad. This one is pretty awful:

Anyway, no “barnitecture” happening with our house.

Of course, we have to respect where we are, and at its heart, St. Helena is an agricultural town. So we will incorporate some of the elements of that heritage into the house — metal roofs, some wood siding, old salvaged wood here and there, a stair tower that evokes the old water towers around town, some sliding barn doors inside the main hallway (hiding behind those doors will be the laundry room).

All in all, it was a good meeting. The Director said we obviously know what we’re doing, and he didn’t see any issues that would trip us up with the Planning Commission. So it’s full steam ahead with the plans! Here are some of the drawings we presented on Tuesday: