Yucatan Courtyard Style Subdivision

Laterly there have been offered some AMAZING courtyard row homes in the city of Merida in the Yucatan. These homes are often fashioned out of older urban homes - and so typically do not have integral parking or garages - a modification VRT works into its interpretation of the long, narrow Yucatan style courtyard home. And these homes are LONG. Seriously long. Unbelievably long - and yet as they are quite narrow can still have modest footprints on the order of 4,000 sq ft or less. The typical layout is to put living an dining right off the street. And empty garden like area comprises the center. At the tail end are the bedrooms. It can at first seem jarring that you in effect have to go outside, walk down a path typically alongside a pool, to get the structure comprising the bedrooms. Yet this configuration offers a charm all its own as the living quarter on one end and the bedrooms on the other 'bookend' a marvelous, tranquil garden like oasis right in the center of the house. Architectrual theorist Jay Appleton tells us about man's innate need to live in a place affording both 'prospect' and 'refuge'. If the interior oasis is the refuge side of the equation then the prospect piece is the large terrace over the garage / storage area next to the street. Some of the Yucatan courtyard homes have this feature although it is not quite the universal as the interior garden. At any rate, and knowing the penchant American's have for a spot with a view, VRT puts a fairly well developed terrace over the garage with covered outdoor kitchen, dining, lounging, and bistro tables. The interior garden area has a larger wraparound seating area with optional TV for outdoor movies - always a crowd favorite on balmy summer nights.

The 'atrium' is a much used feature in the Yucatan courtyard designs - as it was interestingly in the Eichler atomic ranch, a very popular home style found throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. VRT uses the atrium in the front - for the front entrance, a place for bikes and such, and as a home for the stairs leading up to the terrace along the street - and once in the bedroom structure at the back in order to provide for additional illumination and ventilation. As drawn each unit comes with 5 bedrooms and 5 baths with 4 of the bedrooms being 'en suite.'