Arlington Virginia Home Styles Part 3 - The Bi-Level and the Split Foyer

Arlington Virginia Home Styles Part 3 - The Bi-Level and the Split Foyer - Cousins of the Rambler

July 30th, 2008 Categories: Arlington Dirt, Neighborhoods, Northern Virginia Real Estate Dirt

Yes – I thought before the description of a rambler became a distant memory, we’d cover a few relatives – remember, a rambler is single level living, most of the time on a basement. In today’s examples, it it ALWAYS on a basement…

What primarily distinguishes between the 3 styles is how and where you enter the home. In a rambler, you enter on the main level and can then proceed downstairs into the basement. Generally these were built on any type of topography ranging from fairly flat to gently sloping downwards to steeply sloping downwards. This gives a nice walk-out basement in the back and brings a lot of light into the home.

In a bi-level, the entry door is IN the basement - you enter generally to a foyer with a garage perhaps to one side, rec room to the other – it’s like a daylight basement but to the FRONT. You then proceed UP the steps to the main level living, laid out exactly as described in the rambler. These are generally only placed on lots where the land slopes upwards.

Here are a few examples:

Arlington bi-level

Arlington bi-level 2

Some might confuse the bi-level with a colonial, and as we haven’t defined a colonial yet – look at the windows to see if you can determine if it’s 1–level living upstairs (living room, dining, kitchen, bedrooms) all together – the 2nd picture is a little more deceiving, but a bi-level nonetheless.

The second example for today is called a split-foyer – not to be confused with a split level… a Split Foyer is the same house inside as a rambler or bi-level, however, the entrance is BETWEEN levels – so you enter the home to a very small landing to make a choice to go upstairs to the main living level or downstairs to the rec room/basement, garage, perhaps storage and laundry. You can easily spot these once you know to look for the door placement between levels:

Arlington split foyer