Live in the southwest? Want to bring a taste of the southwest to where you live? A Mission style home is the quintessential southwestern style, and has been a fixture in the southwestern region for many, many years. It’s hard to miss a Mission style home – even people who don’t know the name of this architectural style will notice that it looks different than other houses and are reminiscent of days long past.
These homes are not always called Mission style. Sometimes they go by the names of Southwestern, Mission Revival, or Adobe homes. As you stroll past a Mission home, you’re apt to notice that it tends to resemble other Mission-like architecture that popped up during the settling of the Old West by Spanish settlers, particularly churches.
Mission homes are most notable for their smooth stucco siding often in pale beige or white, and the red clay-like or dusty orange tile roof. But Mission homes can have many other attributes as well that set them apart from other homes, such as combinations of square pillars, arched dormers, roof parapets, and more. Some Mission homes are large enough and elaborate enough to even incorporate courtyards. Others have taken a page from the church design book and created their homes to mimic the design of Mission churches, even going so far as to add bell towers (some real, some non-functional), arched windows, and arched doors.
Mission style doors often have windows as these houses are made to allow in healthy amounts of light. Their design and coloration is made to help them remain cool throughout the hot southwestern days. This may be detrimental to those looking to create a Mission style house in a colder climate, but with the right design and smart building, it can be done. Technology has given us the tools to put virtually any architectural style wherever we want.
There’s definitely something about a Mission style home that is enticing to people, which is why it has survived the test of time and remained nearly the same throughout the long years. When a certain architectural style is good, people will continue to use it, or at the very least, modify it to suit their needs. The Mission style has a light feel that is perfect for the southwest or anywhere there is plenty of warmth and sunshine. If you can’t do the entire home in Mission style, you may be able to provide accents to your home in the form of doors, flooring, and even moulding for just a taste of the southwest.