Designing for Franktown
What we weigh in a Franktown home
Franktown is unincorporated Douglas County, with acreage subdivisions and ranches, much of it among ponderosa pine. A home on acreage can need different things than a house on a city street.
When sun matters more than privacy
Lots in subdivisions like Burning Tree Ranch average about five acres, and county rules allow one home per five or 35 acres across much of the area. On an acreage home with privacy from the land around it, sun control may matter more than screening the view, and a screen shade you can see through may be the right answer. A Castle Rock custom home on a lot ringed by pines worked that way.
Big rooms and high windows
If your home has high windows, a vaulted great room or a wall of south-facing glass, motorization makes the shades easy to use, because they open and close by remote, by app or on a schedule you set once.
Patios that face the view
A patio or deck that faces open land faces the weather too, so we look at its sun and wind exposure before suggesting an exterior screen. In The Canyons in Castle Pines we fitted two solar-powered Shade Sense screens, cut on a bias to follow a sloped patio floor.
Ponderosa country
Much of Franktown sits among ponderosa pine. The Colorado State Forest Service's wildfire plan for Burning Tree Ranch describes pine over Gambel oak on dry south- and west-facing slopes, and those same exposures bring hard afternoon sun into a house. We look at which way each room faces before we suggest a fabric.