Getting started

The past couple of days I've spent a few hours looking across property listings on Trulia. I also spent about half an hour IM-ing with a friend of mine who is a local Colorado realtor to get advice about initiating a relationship with a realtor when buying land. She gave me enough information so that I'll be contacting a couple of realtors for meetings when I travel to Florida next month. I am hoping that I'll be able to schedule time to go out and look at a couple of properties.

It seems like the logical order is to find and buy a piece of land and then begin the process to initiate a relationship with an architect. Because I already know the basics of what I would like to build, I have already contacted architect Ron Haase. Mr. Haase is a professor at the University of Florida, a practicing architect and author of the book "Classic Cracker".

I'll go into more details in future posts as to the specifics I have in mind, but I found a quotes which I find appropriate to my dream:

"Folk building growing in response to actual needs, fitted into environment by people who knew no better than to fit them with native feeling" - Frank Lloyd Wright

Introduction

For several years I've wanted to move back to North Florida. I grew up in Tallahassee as a seventh generation Floridian, and now that I have a six month old son I want him to share the experiences of life in the South.

My wife and I expect the move to be a big adjustment. Not only because we will be leaving so many good friends behind in Colorado, but also because we plan to find some land which we would build a house in the countryside. I am starting this blog to chronicle the journey from leaving our home in Colorado (downtown Denver no less) and moving into a new life in rural North Florida.

I'm a big fan of what I'll call Neo-cracker architecture. The house I have in my mind would be a contemporary adaptation of a cracker farm house with many practical self-sustainability features that we can incorporate. Ideally, that would income reclaimed hardwoods, solar/wind energy and enough land to grow many of our own foods.

Wish me luck!