In 2017 the national homebuilding industry's two showcase houses were both built here — by one firm that designed, decorated and constructed them.
Phil Kean Design Group has built in two Lake Nona area neighborhoods: Lake Nona Golf & Country Club and Laureate Park. Both The 2017 New American Home and The 2017 New American Remodeled Home — the National Association of Home Builders' national showcase houses for the International Builders Show — were located in Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, and for the first time in the show's history one firm served as architect, interior designer and builder for both. The firm is based in Winter Park and operates as a combined architecture, construction and interior design practice. Phil Kean is an architect, certified residential contractor and licensed interior designer, and was named the NAHB's Custom Home Builder of the Year for 2013. His firm built the first LEED Gold certified home in Central Florida.
Every year the National Association of Home Builders puts up a showcase house at the International Builders Show — The New American Home — to demonstrate where residential design and building technology are heading. It is the industry looking at itself.
In 2017 there were two: the new-construction showcase and the remodel showcase. Both of them were in Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, and for the first time in the show's history, one firm was selected as architect, interior designer and builder for both. That firm was Phil Kean Design Group, and it is the last name on the Lake Nona builders list.
Which Lake Nona neighborhoods did Phil Kean build?
Two: Lake Nona Golf & Country Club and Laureate Park.
| Neighborhood | Product | Phil Kean's role |
|---|---|---|
| Lake Nona Golf & Country Club | Modern custom estate homes emphasizing clean lines, indoor-outdoor living and current building technology; includes both 2017 New American Home showcase houses | Design/build firm — architect, interior designer and builder on the same projects |
| Laureate Park | Custom homes built within the neighborhood's architectural design code | One of several builders working across the Tavistock master plan |
Who is Phil Kean?
An architect who is also a licensed contractor and a licensed interior designer — a combination almost nobody in residential building holds.
Kean studied at Harvard as an undergraduate and earned both an MBA and a Master of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. He founded Phil Kean Design Group in Winter Park, and the firm operates across architecture, residential construction, interior design and kitchen and bath work rather than specializing in one of them.
The recognition is unusual in its breadth because it comes from both sides of the profession. The National Association of Home Builders named him Custom Home Builder of the Year for 2013. The Florida Association of the American Institute of Architects named the firm Builder of the Year in 2016. AIA's Orlando chapter named it Contractor of the Year in 2014. The Orlando Business Journal named it Builder of the Year in 2017. Architects' organizations and builders' organizations do not usually hand awards to the same firm.
On the environmental side, the firm built the first LEED Gold certified home in Central Florida and the highest-scoring Florida Green Building Coalition certified home in 2012. Kean is a past president of Orlando's Master Custom Builder Council. The practice has designed projects well beyond Florida, including work in Spain, the Bahamas and Ghana.
What was The New American Home, and why does it matter that it was here?
It is the homebuilding industry's national demonstration house, and in 2017 both versions of it were built inside Lake Nona Golf & Country Club.
The New American Home is built each year in the city hosting the International Builders Show, to showcase the newest thinking in design, energy performance and building technology. Thousands of builders walk through it. The New American Remodel does the same job for renovation.
For 2017, NAHB selected Phil Kean Design Group as architect, interior designer and builder for both — the first time in the show's history one firm took all three roles on both houses. The remodel took a 4,444-square-foot home with 1980s styling and turned it into a 4,631-square-foot house in a Bahamian architectural idiom. Both homes were also featured at the American Institute of Architects national convention that year. The firm had previously designed and built The 2012 New American Home in Winter Park.
Why it matters locally: this is the moment Lake Nona's residential architecture got looked at by the entire national industry, and the neighborhood that hosted it was the country club rather than the newer master plan. If you are trying to explain to someone why the club is a serious address rather than just an expensive one, this is the fact to use.
What does design/build actually mean for you?
One firm, one contract for both the drawings and the construction — which removes a common failure point and creates a different one.
In the conventional arrangement, you hire an architect, the architect produces drawings, you take those drawings to builders for pricing, and you hire one. Two contracts, two companies. When something does not work, the architect says it was built wrong and the builder says it was drawn wrong, and you are in the middle paying for the argument.
Design/build collapses that. The firm that draws it prices it and builds it, so there is nobody to point at. The drawings tend to be more buildable because the people drawing them are the people who have to execute them, and cost feedback arrives during design rather than after, which is when it is still cheap to change your mind.
Now the honest other side. When one firm holds both roles, you lose the independent check. In the conventional arrangement, your architect works for you and reviews the builder's work on your behalf. In design/build, the reviewer and the reviewed are the same company. That is not a reason to avoid the model — it is the reason to be deliberate about the contract, the allowance structure, the change-order pricing method and the inspection regime, and to consider retaining your own independent inspector for the build rather than relying solely on the firm's internal process.
Design/build suits people who want a single point of accountability and are comfortable trading independent oversight for it. It suits people who want an architect advocating against a builder considerably less.
What about Phil Kean in Laureate Park?
A modern architect working inside a traditional design code — an unusual assignment, and a good reason to look at what came out of it.
Laureate Park is a Tavistock master plan built as a traditional neighborhood development: front porches, alley-loaded garages, architectural review governing exterior color and style. Phil Kean's signature is the opposite instinct — clean lines, modern massing, indoor-outdoor living, a deliberately contemporary vocabulary.
Those two things meeting produces something worth seeing. A custom architect's work inside a production neighborhood is typically among the better-finished houses on the street, and when the architect is working inside constraints rather than on a blank site, the result is often more interesting than either party would have produced alone.
If you are shopping Laureate Park resales, this matters practically: several builders worked across many phases, and the builder on a specific address is not obvious from the neighborhood name. Get the builder and the year for the exact house. A custom-built home among production neighbors is a genuinely different asset, and it is not always priced as one.
What should you check before building or buying?
The contract structure, who inspects the work, the plat name, and the appraisal reality on a distinctive house.
Contract first, and more carefully here than with a conventional builder because of the design/build structure. Understand how design fees relate to construction cost, how allowances are set, how change orders get priced when the same firm is both proposing and pricing the change, and what the draw schedule looks like. Consider budgeting for your own independent construction inspector. On a project at this level that cost is trivial against the exposure.
Plat name second. Homes inside the country club record under names like Lake Nona Estates and various phase and parcel designations rather than under the club name, so a subdivision search on the club will miss most of the sold history you need to price anything.
Appraisal third, and it applies with particular force to distinctive modern architecture. Appraisers work from comparable sales, and a strongly designed contemporary house in a market of traditional and Mediterranean product has fewer comparables by definition. That cuts both ways on value, but on financing it cuts one way. Plan for it.
Then the ordinary items that still apply at any price: confirm the assessment on the specific parcel using our CDD fees explainer, confirm school zoning for the exact address with our schools guide, and if the club is involved, confirm membership terms and costs directly with the club rather than with a builder or seller.
Phil Kean in Lake Nona: pros and cons
What works. The design credentials are real and independently validated — being named builder of the year by architects' organizations and architect of note by builders' organizations is a rare double. Design/build gives you a single point of accountability, which on a complex custom project is worth a great deal. The firm's energy and green building record is substantive rather than promotional, including the first LEED Gold home in Central Florida. And a house designed by this firm is architecturally distinctive in a market where most product is not, which is a durable differentiator when you sell.
What does not. Design/build means no independent professional reviewing the construction on your behalf, and you should compensate for that deliberately. Strongly modern architecture narrows the buyer pool in a Central Florida market that still leans traditional, and it makes appraisal harder. This is a small firm, so the entity behind a warranty question years out is modest. And custom design/build at this level is a long, expensive process with more decisions than most people anticipate — the showcase houses look effortless because that is their job, not because the process is.
Our take. If you want a genuinely designed house rather than a well-executed plan, this is the firm on the Lake Nona list whose work is most likely to still look considered in twenty years — and the 2017 showcase selection is objective evidence rather than self-assessment. The thing to be deliberate about is oversight. Design/build is efficient precisely because it removes the adversarial gap between architect and builder, and that same removal takes away your advocate. Hire your own inspector, read the change-order provisions closely, and go in knowing that a strikingly modern house in this market is a smaller resale audience buying something they cannot find elsewhere. That is a trade, not a flaw.
What the neighbors know
Inside the club, the 2017 showcase houses are still a reference point. Thousands of builders walked through them during the International Builders Show, and residents who were there remember the traffic. It is the one week the national industry paid attention to this neighborhood specifically.
The other thing that comes up is how differently the modern houses read against their neighbors. Lake Nona Golf & Country Club has been building since 1986, so its housing stock spans four decades of taste, and the contemporary work stands out immediately. Opinions divide exactly as you would expect — and the people who bought those houses bought them because they stand out.
Official sources
- Phil Kean Design Group: The New American Homes
- Announcement of the 2017 New American Home selections at Lake Nona
- Lake Nona Golf & Country Club: custom builders
The inclusion of businesses, individuals, groups, associations, and links on this site does not imply endorsement by the site owner.
Thinking about a designed house in Lake Nona — building new or buying a distinctive resale? I can pull the full sold history under every plat name the club records under and give you an honest read on how a strongly modern house prices and appraises in this market. Call/Text David Myers at 407.801.3286 or use the contact form.
Frequently asked questions
Which Lake Nona neighborhoods did Phil Kean build?
Two: Lake Nona Golf & Country Club, where the firm designed and built both 2017 New American Home showcase houses, and Laureate Park, where it has also built custom homes.
Was The New American Home built in Lake Nona?
Yes. Both The 2017 New American Home and The 2017 New American Remodeled Home — the National Association of Home Builders' national showcase houses for the International Builders Show — were located in Lake Nona Golf & Country Club. For the first time in the show's history, one firm, Phil Kean Design Group, served as architect, interior designer and builder for both.
Is it Phil Kean Designs or Phil Kean Design Group?
The firm is Phil Kean Design Group, often abbreviated PKDG, and it is commonly referred to as Phil Kean Designs. It is based in Winter Park, Florida and operates as an architecture, construction, interior design and kitchen and bath firm.
What does a design/build firm do differently?
A design/build firm handles both the architecture and the construction under one contract, rather than the buyer hiring an architect and then separately hiring a builder. That removes the gap where design and construction blame each other when something does not work. The trade-off is that the party designing the house is also the party pricing and building it, so there is no independent check between them.
Who is Phil Kean?
An architect, certified residential contractor and licensed interior designer who founded Phil Kean Design Group in Winter Park. He studied at Harvard and earned both an MBA and a Master of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, and was named the National Association of Home Builders' Custom Home Builder of the Year for 2013. His firm built the first LEED Gold certified home in Central Florida.
