Norman Davenport Askins Architects is a residential architectural firm, crafting classical-style houses. With its location at Buckhead Atlanta, the firm is found by veteran Ar. Askins whose mastery in architectural history and acquaintance with restoration and preservation projects enabled him to mold houses out of the real or fictional history of the client family. They have designed period residences to vacation cottages, plantations, and additions, spreading across the U.S, Ireland, and France, in which lingers vivid architectural fads of diverse epochs. The firm has received numerous honors over 4 decades of creative excellence. 

1. Classic Atlanta

Classic Atlanta is a typical manifestation of Early American Federal architecture with its entrance porticoes, shuttered double-hung windows, fanlight doors, etc. The interiors have vivid focal elements such as mirror, chandelier, fireplace, natural colors, and curved staircase. Strong symmetry is a ubiquitous feature of the house.

2. Highlands North Carolina

Highlands evolved as a clear response to the climate of North Carolina. The house uses stone and wood for walls and flooring. High pitch roof with side gables being the characteristic feature, when topped with snow during winter integrates it with the surrounding landscape. The interiors have a beige background which is lavished with antique crockery.

3. Beach Sea Islands

A serene retreat cottage with its oyster white facades and palm trees in the front yard, this cottage is fashioned as a typical pastel Bermuda style house with its stylized gables, grooved limestone roofs, over scale chimneys and casement windows with wooden blinds. The white interior walls give the house an austerity, but the pastel-shaded peculiar door arches and soft furniture add drama to it. 

4. Cottage

A simple fence gate lighted by a classy lantern welcomes the guests into the renovated cottage which has dark gray shingled walls and roofs, which is contrasted with the calm ivory and cream interiors including walls, cupboards, stairs, fabrics, and lampshades. A carpenter gothic arch is used to frame the bar.  

5. Southern Classical

Southern Classical is another majestic portrayal of Federal architecture whose Georgian style portico and rotational symmetry accentuate its imposing attribute. The curvesome stairs lit by an atrium decorated with lucid geometric patterns and graceful cornice hangs a crystalline chandelier, which adds a feminine beauty in its interior. This house has an exuberant English garden in its rear yard with a water pool, sculpted pots, and green topiaries.

6. Atlanta Manor

Perching on rolling ground, this Georgian manor has a stately posture due to the English imported dark brick sharply contrasted with rusticated limestone, used in aedicule, side porch, pillars, entablature and raking cornice. Interiors are embellished with decorated transom arches, simple ornamental cornice work, and a classic stair rail. The manor accommodates a walled garden on stepping down the side porch.

7. Tudor Renovation

The 100- year- old renovated house has an asymmetrical assemblage of archetypal Tudor features. The half-timbered wall with the symmetrical uniform placement of casement and Tudor diamond windows, topped with a decorative barge board gable form the Tudor statement of the house. The slate cladding steep roof has dormers and some playful chimneys. The interior is daylit due to white walls and numerous openings. 

8. Mountain North Carolina

Mountain is a rustic stone cottage with high pitched slate clad roof with curved eaves and a colossal stone chimney forming its identity. An intermediate passage spanned by pointed timber arches creates a picturesque vista. The dining chairs have cherry red fabric, which adds a drama to the plain interior. This highland house has a warm shingle walled semi-open patio in its rear yard. 

9. Piedmont Athens

Piedmont is a classic, calm and composed house, with its one half stonewalled while the other half is of weatherboard. The multi pitched roof with rhythmic and slender dormers is the unique feature of the house. It incorporates a fusion of details from different periods such as a federal style fireplace mantlepiece, colonial-style Palladian window, etc.

10. Palm Beach Florida

Palm Beach resort is adorned with beautiful hand-carved coquina columns, pilasters, and aedicule, giving the facades a coastal flavor. It is roofed with French terracotta tiles, whose eaves end with a decorative cornice. The roof and parts of walls are made lush with climbers which defines an axial garden. 

11. Italian

This house portrays a modest manifestation of Italianate architecture on its exterior façade while the ostentation of Italian villas in its interior. The low pitched roof with emphatic eaves carried by underneath corbels gives modesty to the structure. The pedimented front door with a deep cornice welcomes one into the luxurious interior with bold and vivid colors, decors, fabrics, and sizeable bright lamps.

12. Federal

This winsome house is an exemplary Federal edifice.  The rusticated brick wall along with the subdued brown and white combination imparts dignity to the whole structure. The small pillared portico with a deep cornice and corbel detail is of both intimacy and authority. The interior has a decorative transom and pedimented doorways and peculiar cornice detail. 

13. Burgundy Atlanta

Burgundy inspired by French provincial architecture is composed of stone, half-timbering, and Kansas limestone bordering the fenestrations. The front façade has an arched portal, breaking the cornice and rising above the eaves of the steeply pitched roof. The outbuildings surrounding a courtyard have the roof tiles complimented with brick quoins on the walls.

14. Cashier’s Home North Carolina

Inspired by the mountainside castles of the Dordogne region in France, the Cashier’s home provides a perfect retreat from the Atlanta heat wave with its local chestnut bark and rough-hewn limestone walls. The house has its front entry stairs and carpenter baroque style balustrades constructed out of chestnut boards.

15. Garage Addition to Atlanta Home

The Atlanta home has been added with a brick-walled garage and suit with the former having an elliptical fan lit entry. It has a double gabled roof with dormers. A custom cupola is hoisted atop the garage.