Spec homes are back with bold designs

Building homes on spec, especially the multimillion dollar variety, has always been risky, but building spec homes with bold architecture is doubly so. Nevertheless, a few brave developers around the U.S. are putting together luxury homes with ultramodern designs.

In Miami, workers are wrapping up the construction of a seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom concrete home that is listed for $9.8 million. It features a living area with 24-foot ceilings, 12-foot doors and a 20-by-20-foot concrete wall embedded with an eight-inch-deep relief of a massive oak tree, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The striking home is being developed by Dennis Day, an accountant from the Netherlands who has never built in the U.S. before. Day purchased the property for $1.5 million in 2010, but wouldn’t disclose the construction cost.

“After five years of being in the doldrums, all of a sudden luxury spec is starting to catch fire,” Peter Zalewski, the principal of Miami’s Condo Vultures, said.

But the contemporary design going into spec housing isn’t limited to Miami. From Los Angeles to Aspen, new and challenging structures are being built with no particular buyer in mind. [WSJ] –Christopher Cameron