Scales also tells us the market in this area is saturated with three-story attached townhomes. “Our goal was to provide a truly detached house and provide more two-story homes than three-story homes in this special enclave. Conventional at-grade living connects with private yards, which is more conducive with the needs of a young, urban family and helps fulfill the city's need for high-density single-family detached housing and provides attainable housing to first time buyers with a discerning eye.”

Through KTGY's design, VITAE is achieving densities that are more in line with a three-story attached product, but has done so in two- and three-story detached homes with private yards, says Scales. “Costa Mesa also has a parking requirement of three parking spaces for a two-bedroom home and four parking spaces for a three-bedroom home, and we were able to accomplish this in more than 17 dwelling units per acre.”

COSTA MESA, CA—KTGY Architecture + Planning has designed thousands of small-lot homes, including more than 900 developed under the Los Angeles Small Lot Ordinance, which the firm helped to formulate with the City of Los Angeles, KTGY principal Alan Scales tells GlobeSt.com. A leader in small-lot home design, the firm has designed approximately 150 small-lot homes for builder Planet Home Living including 10 contemporary-styled small-lot homes in Los Angeles' popular Silver Lake neighborhood, called COVO, and the first phase of a new limited collection of 20 homes here in Costa Mesa, CA, called VITAE.

The VITAE collection is located approximately a quarter mile from the Triangle, which offers shops, restaurants and bars, plus a cinema, gym, nightclub and bowling alley. VITAE is a community of detached, single-family residences. The homes strike an ideal balance for home buyers who seek spacious, eco-friendly living that is easy to care for and close to where they work and play.

The two- and three-level homes offer two to three bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms and approximately 1,620 square feet to 1,700 square feet of living space with an attached, private, two-car garage. The homes also have flexible space that can be used an entertainment room, a home office, gym or art studio, a reading nook, craft space or “man cave.”

“This is an eclectic neighborhood, which influenced a transitional style of architecture,” Scales tells us exclusively. “VITAE is a meaningful infill solution that provides varied massing with intentional placement of the two-story homes at project frontage to be more in line with existing neighborhood. The homes have a warm, contemporary color scheme with stucco exteriors, stained grade-lapped siding, and oversized, asymmetrical windows.”

Scales also tells us the market in this area is saturated with three-story attached townhomes. “Our goal was to provide a truly detached house and provide more two-story homes than three-story homes in this special enclave. Conventional at-grade living connects with private yards, which is more conducive with the needs of a young, urban family and helps fulfill the city's need for high-density single-family detached housing and provides attainable housing to first time buyers with a discerning eye.”

Through KTGY's design, VITAE is achieving densities that are more in line with a three-story attached product, but has done so in two- and three-story detached homes with private yards, says Scales. “Costa Mesa also has a parking requirement of three parking spaces for a two-bedroom home and four parking spaces for a three-bedroom home, and we were able to accomplish this in more than 17 dwelling units per acre.”