'I feel like I'm on vacation.' Modern farmhouse style a hit with Northeast Ohio homeowners

For Sally Goodnow and Michael Kell, the modern farmhouse he built in 2019 is not only a place to live, but a place that promotes a way of living.

The home — featuring an open floor plan, rustic wood, white walls and no wasted space — provides a different feeling than their previous dwellings. The kitchen, dining room and living area flow together. The back wall, adjacent to the dining area, is filled with windows that open to a view of the in-ground pool.

"It's like living in a resort," Kell said.

"I feel like I'm on vacation here all the time; it's just such a pleasant house," said Goodnow, who designed the three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath home in the modern farmhouse style popularized by HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines.

Goodnow is a Realtor. Kell rehabilitates inner-city houses with his business, Property Investment Group Services. So both were familiar with home design before creating their own iteration of the trendy modern farmhouse.

The style is popping up throughout the Akron-Canton region in everything from new construction to vintage home remodels, and homebuilders in Northeast Ohio say demand remains strong for that design. The homes showcase styling cues seen in Gaines-influenced modern farmhouses, such as windows framed in black, gables and white board and batten vertical siding.

It's become so popular the New York Times this past summer called the modern farmhouse "today's McMansion."

Where did the modern farmhouse style start?

Kyle Oberlin has a bird's-eye view of the real estate market in the Stark County area in his roles as president of Stark Trumbull Area Realtors and president of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Professional Realty, where he runs its Stark County team.

"I feel like the modern farmhouse is actually, in a sense, one of the few trends that has probably started in Middle America and then worked its way to the coasts," Oberlin said. "Most of the time, it's the opposite. Most of the time, stuff starts on the coast and then trickles into the Midwest."

Oberlin believes the prevalence of farms and the Amish population in this region may have factored into the style's popularity.

He said most buyers want modern farmhouses because they are trendy, with their grayscale hues representing a departure from previously favored earth tones.

"In all of the '90's, we were stuck in 'oak city,' where trim was oak and cabinets were oak and everything was oak," he said. "Then as you move into the 2000s, you start seeing less carpet, more (luxury vinyl tile) flooring and then that's kind of progressed from (luxury vinyl tile) flooring with the wood trim to painting the trim white or just putting white trim up. Generally, whites look better with grayscales. In the last 10 years, we've seen a shift to a lot of grayscale remodels and builds."

Wood tones were then integrated into the look so it didn't seem "too gray," Oberlin said. "When you have blacks and whites and wood tones, the good styling method for those three things is generally a farm feel."

Ben Grisez, president of Grisez Homes of Jackson Township, said homebuyers are seeking a little twist on the style, too.

"Two years ago, we did seven houses that were all white with black windows and board-and-batten," Grisez said. "It's still around, the white with the board-and-batten, but that's slowly changing."

Grisez said customers are starting to add gold-tone fixtures — a shiny pop of color against the monochrome.

Jarod Lawver, of Lawver Homes, based near Dover, said the demand for the modern farmhouse remains strong here.

"The Chip and Joanna Gaines movement made everybody want 'modern farmhouse.' However, I feel like it's phasing out in a lot of the country," Lawver said.

How much do modern farmhouse style homes cost?

Oberlin said many buyers are priced out of the market for modern farmhouses because most are newly built, or they are renovated properties that got whole-house makeovers.

"The average price point in Stark County is right around $225,000 to $240,000 but you don't really see those modern farmhouses until you get to maybe ... $350,000 ... plus," Oberlin said.

A trend to flip over

Realtor Kenny Mayle and his business partners bought a Lake Township ranch house, built in 1960, for $89,000 in December. The partnership, Your Forever Home LLC, spent $115,000 giving it a complete modern farmhouse makeover.

"We did end up getting three offers. One was over $300,000," he said. They accepted a cash offer. A sale is pending.

To prepare the home for the market, they removed interior walls to convert a former bedroom into a living area open to the kitchen and dining areas. There's a cedar beam on the ceiling in the common area. Most of the walls, doors and trim are white, upstairs and downstairs. A laundry room was crafted inside a bathroom with space taken from the second closet of an adjoining bedroom.

Shiplap, common in the modern farmhouse, covers the walls of the staircase leading to the basement. Mayle said they avoided putting shiplap upstairs because he sees it becoming less popular. The basement ceiling is black, to make it look higher.

Double knotty pine doors lead from the master suite to a patio behind the house.

Outside, there's white board and batten siding and a black metal roof. Doors and windows are framed in black. The front door is painted green.

"I still think it's on-trend. A think lot of the bolder colors, earth tones are coming back," Mayle said.

He's pleased with the result of the remodeling.

"I absolutely love it," Mayle said.

'It's just completely informal'

Goodnow said the Plain Township house she shares with Kell feels different than the one she lived in before.

"It's just completely informal," she said. "The way we did the floors and everything ... nothing's going to hurt anything. It's easy living."

The distressed gray plank flooring can survive a spill. The television hides behind sliding barn doors in an entertainment center.

The first floor of the home features 10-foot ceilings. There's no two-story great room or two-story foyer. There are no formal rooms that get used only on special occasions.

"We use every inch of the downstairs," Goodnow said.

The dining room is part of the great room. Casual seating is available along an 11-foot-long kitchen island.

On the outside, Goodnow avoided features that she felt would date the house, such as the black roof and black-framed windows that are typical in the modern farmhouse.

"Over the years, there was the country French style that was really popular," Goodnow said. "Now that's kind of dated. Nobody wants that anymore."

The exterior features other modern farmhouse elements such as metal roofing and exposed wood beams. Three windows bring natural light into the three-car garage, a magnet for Kell, the kind of guy who has a fridge in his garage and a tape measure in his pocket.

Goodnow said the white walls, ceiling and trim used throughout the interior both simplify and enhance decorating.

"When you have white walls and everything's just clean, an antique looks great against the wall, even a modern piece," Goodnow said.

The first-floor master suite features a fireplace Kell pulled from an old house.

What do buyers want in new houses?

Joe Race said the modern farmhouse style was on display in all seven houses at this year's Parade of Homes staged by the Building Industry Association of Stark & East Central Ohio in Hartville. Race, president of the association, said he's seen demand for the design in last seven years.

For Ron Vega, whose Vega Construction in based Perry Township, creation of the modern farmhouse starts with the exterior design. His Parade of Homes entry featured a combination of textures and materials outside: wood, stone, brick, metal and board-and-batten siding. Indoor wood molding is flat with a raised profile on the edge.

In the modern farmhouse, lighting fixtures may be modeled after designs used a hundred years ago, with contemporary working parts. A chandelier suggests a wagon wheel. Garage doors have a rustic look.

The Grisez entry in the Parade of Homes featured brick flooring in the entrance and a living area with a vaulted ceiling and exposed rough-sawn timber beams. Grisez said he first showed the living room design in a model eight or nine years ago.

"People just loved that," Grisez said. "We do those all the time now."

Reach Nancy at 330-580-8382 or nancy.molnar@cantonrep.com.

On X, formerly known as Twitter: @nmolnarTR

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Akron-Canton homebuyers embrace growing modern farmhouse trends