By Timothy Caraboolad, Palm Beach, FL
Two climates, two sets of rules
I spent years building homes in Boston. Now most of my work happens in South Florida. The move taught me something I did not fully expect: the climate a house sits in changes almost every decision you make, long before you get to style or finishes.
In New England, a house has to hold heat and survive a hard winter. Windows are smaller in some rooms because glass loses heat fast. Mudrooms exist for a reason. Basements are storage and mechanical space, and sometimes living space too, because you need every square foot you can get out of a lot that will only see sun for part of the year.
In Palm Beach, none of that logic applies. Heat is the enemy, not cold. Humidity gets into everything if you let it. The sun is a design element you have to manage all day, not a resource you chase in short supply.
What actually changes in the plans
The biggest shift is how much a house opens up. In Boston, I was closing rooms off from weather. In Florida, I am opening them to it, but carefully. Covered outdoor living space, deep overhangs, and sliding glass walls do more work here than almost anything else in the plan. A great Florida home treats the outdoors as another room, not an afterthought tacked onto the back of the lot.
Ventilation matters in a completely different way too. Up north, you are sealing a house tight to keep conditioned air in during winter. Down here, you are managing airflow and moisture so a house does not feel damp, even with the air conditioning running constantly. That changes window placement, ceiling height, and where you put mechanical systems.
Materials shift as well. Wood that performs fine in a Boston winter can warp or invite mold in South Florida humidity. Stone, tile, and certain metals hold up better against salt air and constant sun exposure. I choose finishes now with humidity and UV exposure in mind first, and look second.
Light behaves differently
Boston light is soft for most of the year. You design to bring more of it in. Florida light is intense and constant, so you design to control it. Overhangs, shading, and window orientation matter more here than they ever did up north. A room that faces west without the right shading can be uncomfortable by mid-afternoon, no matter how good the air conditioning is.
I also think about glare differently now. In a colder climate, bright light rarely feels like too much. In South Florida, it can overwhelm a room fast if you are not careful about orientation and glass selection.
The lot tells you what to build
In Boston, lots are often smaller and more fixed in shape, so a lot of the design conversation is about how to make a compact footprint feel generous. In South Florida, especially around Palm Beach, lots can allow for more spread out living, single story wings, and a stronger connection between the main house and the pool or outdoor space. That changes how I think about circulation. Instead of stacking rooms vertically to save ground space, I can let a house breathe horizontally.
That shift also changes how privacy works. Up north, privacy often comes from distance between houses and mature trees. In South Florida, walls, landscaping, and the placement of the pool relative to the street do more of that work, since lots and lines of sight are different.
What stays the same
None of this means good design principles change from place to place. A home still needs to make sense for how the people living in it actually move through their day. Storage still has to be planned early, not squeezed in later. Light, air, and material choices still have to work together instead of fighting each other.
What changes is which of those principles carries the most weight. In a cold climate, you are solving for warmth and shelter first. In a hot, humid one, you are solving for airflow, shade, and durability first. Everything else follows from that.
If there is one thing this move has reinforced for me, it is that a good house is never a generic template dropped onto a lot. It is a response to where it sits, the light it gets, and the air it has to manage every single day of the year.