Looking to build an Acadian style home up here in Okie Land. LA architect recommendations?

You recommending them I assume?

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A. Hays Town

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1st person to come to mind. Too bad he's dead. His homes are amazing. I think his son is still building some though. Good thing this is the O-T, and everyone is a baller. Thats what it takes to get anything close to an A. Hays Town quality of home.

As a builder, I designed, built and sold over 100 Acadian style homes in some of Mandeville's better subdivisions. Let me offer some thoughts:

Since the Acadian requires a symmetrical front porch, it severely limits flexibility of the interior flood plan ... center foyer, room right, room left. When designing a home, you either start with what you want on the inside or how you want the exterior to look ... pick one first, you then limit the other.

The cost of the front porch equals the cost of a room. Therefore, your home has one less room than you could have had ... probably a BR + bath.

A front porch is like owning another car or a boat. It has to be maintained properly. It has to be cleaned regularly. Do you really want to spend a Saturday morning cleaning your front porch?

Would you get more use from a rear porch? or an outdoor kitchen pavilion?

Builders do better building homes similar to what they have previously built. It doesn't have to be a duplicate, but if you can find something in OKLA that you're happy with, modify it, then build it.

Just some considerations.

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As a builder, I designed, built and sold over 100 Acadian style homes in some of Mandeville's better subdivisions. Let me offer some thoughts:

Since the Acadian requires a symmetrical front porch, it severely limits flexibility of the interior flood plan ... center foyer, room right, room left. When designing a home, you either start with what you want on the inside or how you want the exterior to look ... pick one first, you then limit the other.

The cost of the front porch equals the cost of a room. Therefore, your home has one less room than you could have had ... probably a BR + bath.

A front porch is like owning another car or a boat. It has to be maintained properly. It has to be cleaned regularly. Do you really want to spend a Saturday morning cleaning your front porch?

Would you get more use from a rear porch? or an outdoor kitchen pavilion?

Builders do better building homes similar to what they have previously built. It doesn't have to be a duplicate, but if you can find something in OKLA that you're happy with, modify it, then build it.

Just some considerations

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Great post. Adding to that, Potentially the biggest investment of your life is a fish out of water. If OK has no Acadian influence whatsoever, why would you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a property of that very nature. Everyone always assumes they are building their forever home, but life happens.

I rep alot of buyers from TX & Cali who relo to TN and want to build Mediterranean style homes. We have zero Spanish influence here. Those properties tend to take baths on resell or sit until a buyer from those markets buy. A TN farmhouse? You'll have multiple offers in a week in most cases.

Just food for thought.

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Acadiana Home Design

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those are all French country style...

Over and Over...

Now compare those to:

Norman.

And we're about to buy a 1+ acre lot. There are other homes in the neighborhood but not on top of each other. Also, homes are all over the place in this neighborhood. From homes like I posted above, to some farmhouse styles, etc.

And yeah, even if you look at a builder such as C.A. McCarty they have done some homes kind of in the Acadian realm:

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Madden is very hard to work with. I would look around a bit before I went that route. We used him to draw our first house and just thought he was quirky. We went back when we wanted to start our 2nd house but he was a jerk. He told my wife and I that he hated drawing that style house and wouldn't do it. We gladly moved on. I've other folks here say the same things about him. Be cautious.

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I am definitely feeling this now. His designs are pretty good, and I like his style over a few others. However, he was late to our first meeting, his communication is poor, and he's taking a while. We waited over a month and half to first meet with him too. I called and set the initial meeting in mid February, and my plans are projected to be done in a week or so.

So far the design and work has been great, but this post is reflective of my experience as well.

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Now compare those to:

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The top one is very roughly "Acadian style." The bottom one is not at all. It's the dumb riff on "French Provincial", which seems to be sort of a rage these days, but has no connection to anything "Acadian" nor anything historically built in Louisiana really.