Ask anyone who has been with their partner for decades, and they’ll tell you: It’s all about compromise. So when Danelle Harvey, who prefers the charm of old homes, and her wife Deb McCoy, who is partial to features that can only be found in new residences, were house hunting for their forever place, it became obvious that only one solution would appease both parties: Build a brand-new home that looked very, very old. “She wanted the convenience and amenities of new homes; I wanted all the things that old homes have as far as looks,” Harvey says.
The couple started building in 2021 and implemented antique light fixtures, reclaimed doors, wide baseboards, vintage mantels, and more to imbue the home with a sense of history. Coupled with the pair’s extensive collection of antique furniture, the result is a shockingly precocious home, one that is mature beyond its years. But beneath the patinated finishes is modern plumbing, central air, brand-new appliances, and the peace of mind that it meets all current codes.
They’re not alone. Today new builds are getting, well, older—at least in appearance. AD has recently published a number of new construction projects with a distinct historical bent across a variety of styles, from a Vermont lake house—“People think it’s grandma, but it’s actually quite modern,” AD100 decorator Miles Redd said of the property—to a New Jersey residence designed to replicate a heritage English estate and a Colorado farmhouse made to look as if it had been there forever. Even midcentury-style homes are returning to a more authentic approach, compared to the “McModern” look that has dominated much of new construction for the past few years.
“There was a whole generation of people who were drawn to homes that didn’t have the kind of depth that a historical home would have,” says James Paragano, the architect behind the aforementioned New Jersey home. Broadly, the cohort buying homes throughout the 2010s liked hyper-modern finishes, extremely clean lines, and little texture and patina. “Well-edited minimalism took over for maximalism. Instead of a sea of antiques, we saw one or two in a modern room,” interior designer Ryan Korban told Vogue in 2016 when speaking about that year’s biggest design trends. Now the pendulum is swinging towards a storied, layered look. “Just like anything else, when there’s this strong move towards something, it gets worn out and there’s a strong move against it and to something else,” Paragano says. “And I do feel like now there is a move towards homes with authenticity.”
These new new builds circumvent the stereotypes of modern construction: cookie cutter silhouettes, inexpensive finishes, and overall lack of character. And while you could argue that there have always been architect-designed homes that are more considered than this suburban typecast, there is now generally a much more distinct appetite for a home that doesn’t just look like it belongs in its setting, but like it has always been there.
“When people walk in, they say it feels like an old mill,” Sean Rosko says of the Marietta, Georgia, home he and his wife, content creator Loren Rosko, designed, built, and finished in 2026. “That’s exactly what we wanted,” he adds.
The couple had previously rented a circa-1800s loft in a former rocking chair factory and fell in love with the character of the historical space. When they were looking to buy, they wanted a home with similar qualities, but “most of the older homes in the area are either wildly expensive or huge projects,” Loren says. Ultimately they came to the same conclusion as McCoy and Harvey: They could build an old home from scratch.
The pair found brick from a factory that was being torn down and repurposed it—chipped edges, paint speckles, and all—into arches throughout the home. They sourced doors from a mansion in Belgium and opted for tumbled marble floor tiles “that already look like they’ve got a hundred years of wear and tear,” Sean says. “All those things just add character and warmth to a house.”
When designing an Indianapolis home for an art collector, Jakeb Novak of Specht Novak says his team drew inspiration from nearby Columbus, which has a rich modernist history. “It helped give us a rationale for some of the choices we were making,” he explains. The design incorporates materials common to the region, such as brick, while honoring the mid-mod tendencies towards clean lines, picture views, and natural light. “A lot of buildings from that period really tried to focus on capturing light so you didn’t have to use artificial light,” he adds.
The penchant for archival architectural styles also speaks to broader home design trends. “I think social media has played a ginormous role in the popularization of this older aesthetic,” says Mallory Fletchal, an NYC-based content creator who has made several viral videos about the ways she adds historical character to her Brooklyn apartment. “To me, it has blown up because of the oversaturation of people sharing their spaces, and then others want to recreate it even if they don’t actually live in an old home,” she explains.
For many, this new-build option upholds preferential aesthetics while satisfying practical needs and eliminating restoration headaches. “We have new duct work, new windows, new plumbing,” Harvey says. “We probably won’t have to mess with them.”
It can also be a savvy economical decision. “Sometimes the budgets are either so close or perhaps even more to renovate an existing home [compared to building new],” Paragamo says. According to the National Association of Realtors, the median resale value was more expensive than the median price for newly built homes at the beginning of 2026.
Architects that are tasked with designing these types of homes say it’s the small details that differentiate between something that feels genuine and something more akin to a dollhouse recreation. “We were really trying to not reinvent midcentury,” explains Mark Odom, an architect at Cline, of a home he designed in Austin for a client who wanted an authentic midcentury-style home. “We spent a lot of time during construction finding the proper brick and making sure it remained level throughout so you could follow a datum line through the whole house. It’s that level of detail that we included across the house, which goes back to creating authenticity.”
And for homeowners, they say this type of design is, more than anything, a head start to the style of property they’d naturally grow into. “When we saw [finishes or objects] that maybe had some dings and dents on it, we thought, That’s good; that’s what we want,” Sean says. “We want it to feel lived-in. We’re going to raise our kids here, so this is how it would’ve been anyway.”