Dive Brief:

• A new school of house design that's taking off in Texas is called Hill Country Modern, and it's paid off for the builders who came up with it.
• The style that architect Mike Woodley came up with for Partners in Building for its Houston and Austin markets is described as "an agrarian style, warm but contemporary."
• The company saw traffic spike at models using Hill Country Modern, so it quickly ramped up its use of the style.

Dive Insight:

The bottom-line lesson from the experience is to be watching what customers respond to and then give them opportunities to have it. Hill Country Modern came out of an effort to work some popular features of $1 million-plus homes into those selling for about 75% of the price. The design elements have worked so well in single-family that Partners is targeting attached communities closer to cities.