In a dense part of Kaohsiung City, the residence achieves a sense of openness by facing the sports facilities of an adjacent school yard.
Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.
From the Architect: "Located in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, the project occupies the terminus of a narrow dead-end alley, enclosed on three sides by neighboring residences and a school. With only a single point of access, the site is constrained by limited accessibility, daylight, and natural ventilation. In contrast, its adjacency to the school’s sports field introduces an unexpected visual openness, providing a rare spatial relief within the dense urban fabric and becoming the project’s primary environmental asset.
"The proposal replaces an aging two-story reinforced concrete dwelling with a lightweight steel-framed residence for the client's retired mother, while providing flexible accommodation for her two adult children during periodic visits. To minimize displacement, the project adopts a prefabricated construction strategy that shortens the building process and enables rapid reoccupation. Entitled MOM House (Modularized Open Model), the project is conceived as an expandable structural framework composed of repetitive steel grid modules. Designed as an open system rather than a fixed building type, MOM supports changing domestic needs through incremental expansion and spatial reconfiguration while improving fabrication efficiency, simplifying on-site assembly, and extending the building's capacity for long-term adaptation.
"The residence is organized around the daily routines of the retired mother, with the primary living spaces located on the ground floor and directly connected to an internal garden shared with her two children. Guest rooms for the children occupy the upper levels with skylight, while a communal terrace and family lounge are positioned between them, framing unobstructed views toward the adjacent sports field. This vertical sequence transforms the site’s spatial limitations into opportunities for light, openness, and family interaction.
"The prototype consists of eight steel grid modules arranged along a linear axis, interrupted by a single intentionally irregular structural bay. This controlled deviation simultaneously articulates the tectonic expression of the structural system and accommodates rainwater drainage, directing runoff into the garden below, but also as a joint for future extension. By integrating environmental infrastructure within the structural framework, the project embeds performance directly into the architectural language rather than treating it as a concealed technical solution.
"The structural grid extends to the building envelope, which is clad with prefabricated matte-finished aluminum panels. The modular facade reinforces the logic of the construction system while allowing efficient fabrication and future replacement. Its subtly reflective surface responds to changing light, vegetation, and the surrounding neighborhood, softening the building’s visual presence while maintaining a distinct architectural identity."
The legendary performer didn't run away from her humble beginnings, instead carrying them with her, not as a burden, but as a north star.
Alongside parents, neighbors, and teachers, the houses where we grow up help raise us. The childhood home sets the bar: Part of the ongoing dialogue around the housing crisis stems from young people today who grew up in middle-class suburban tract homes feeling betrayed by the fact that those same homes (and lives) are not attainable to them. Not unrelatedly, some of us spend our lives running away from our housing roots, searching for something entirely different—maybe better, more lavish, or more urban; we go no-contact with the conditions that raised us in hopes that we can build a life that we define for ourselves. Even in rejecting our pasts, the houses of our youth form us.
This is why, in the wake of her death Tuesday, I can’t stop thinking about Dolly Parton’s childhood home. The famed country music star, actress, and philanthropist was brought up alongside her 11 siblings in a one-bedroom cabin among East Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains. It’s a place that, at this point in time, approaches a mythology of sorts: She grew up without running water or electricity; the daughter of a field laborer and homemaker, her mother, she told Rolling Stone, made everything by hand—clothes, curtains, bedding. Of course that wasn’t the end of her story—when she died, she was worth around $450 million. While some might choose to see it as a rags-to-riches story, the cliché narrative is too reductive. The house that built Dolly Parton isn’t one that she ran away from, or that made her stardom all the more appealing; rather, it was something that she continued to carry with her, not as a burden, but as a north star.
Dolly Parton performing on stage in 1978.
Photo by David Redfern/Redferns via Getty Images
You can find photos of the house online: a simple building with a pitched roof overhang to provide a covered porch. But most of these photos are actually of a replica built at her Tennessee theme park, Dollywood. There, you can take a short stroll through her history, where a wood-burning stove, kitchen table, and simple cooking accoutrements populate the main room; newsprint and floral papered walls are used for insulation. Some of the replica’s furnishings come from Dolly’s real Sevier County childhood home, which is not open to the public but was renovated by Parton after she purchased it in the 1980s.
Dolly, however, was insistent that this upbringing wasn’t purely poverty; she has referenced a quote from her mother, who, per Rolling Stone, told her as a child that, "We are rich in love and kindness and understanding." Parton’s song "Coat of Many Colors" tells the story of her mother making her a coat from colorful rags and getting made fun of at school for wearing it. "But they didn’t understand it / And I tried to make them see / That one is only poor / Only if they choose to be." Her house, her upbringing, returns again and again in her music, a photo of it even gracing the jacket of her 1973 album My Tennessee Mountain Home. In the title track, she sings of the crickets heard from her porch, children playing—it’s not a place or circumstance of strife but of serenity.
Dolly photographed at Dollywood with her father, Robert, and mother, Avie, in 1987.
Photo by John Seakwood/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
I think of these songs, her love for her childhood home, in a time when American rhetoric repeats bootstrapping tropes, where so much angst is spent on an ideal of "making it." Our collective obsession with abandoning a past self—and past circumstances—has arguably left many generations unmoored, searching for some hint that we’ve attained success. What if, instead, we attempted to go forward and carry those pieces with us? Rather than running away from it, what if we tried to return? It reminds me of a quote from art critic Dave Hickey in Country Music Magazine, where he wrote about Joplin, Missouri, upon seeing Parton perform there in 1974: "It’s one of those places that, no matter where you’re from, you never enter without feeling that you’re coming back to something." I’m not sure if Dolly ever "made it" so much as she has always been coming back to something, each time with a new story, a new way of seeing and singing her home into being.
Top image of Dolly Parton at Dollywood in 1987 by John Seakwood/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
From the Listing: "This home was built in 1938 for the Laird & Schober Shoes family, the Christian Louboutin of their time. Laird & Schober Shoes was founded in Philadelphia in 1870 and became internationally renowned for crafting luxurious women’s and children’s footwear, winning the grand prize at the 1900 Paris Exposition. The updated home blends preserved period craftsmanship with modern amenities. From the moment you enter, the defining architectural details reveal themselves: original hardwood floors, exceptional millwork and moldings, stile-and-rail paneled walls, soaring ceilings, handcrafted staircases and banisters, carved woodwork, crystal doorknobs, original light fixtures, and beautiful stonework. Nearly every room enjoys views of the surrounding gardens and mature landscaping. At the exterior, travertine, bluestone, and EP Henry patios and walkways create a series of outdoor living spaces. The finished lower level has its own fireplace and TV. The pool, spa, and outdoor areas are perfect for entertaining. The home offers abundant natural light and storage, tremendous indoor and outdoor living space, timeless character, and an unmistakable sense of warmth."
This Tudor-style home in Abington, Pennsylvania, was built in 1938 for the Laird & Schober Shoes family.
The two-level masonry residence sits on a rock escarpment looking out over a gorge.
Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.
Project Details:
Location: Southern Highlands, New South Wales, Australia
From the Architect: "EA house is a family home built onto a sensitive rock cliff face escarpment in the southern highlands. An experimental house, while simple in form, it solves many overlapping constraints and challenges that exist because of the site, a leftover parcel of land from a suburb that was planned before realizing there was a giant cliff and gorge. Since being deemed unbuildable, the site had been empty.
"The home touches its site purposefully but carefully so as to have no impact on any existing flora and fauna, utilizing the natural typography to its advantage. It has a small footprint that emerges from the rock. A bridge provides both equitable access along with being the conduit for all services to and from the building resulting in minimal impact on the rock escarpment and existing trees.
"Planning is paired back. Public and private areas are opposite, with the living spaces at the lower levels having a closer connection to its site. All spaces are connected by a single loaded corridor that slowly reveals the spatial play of the plan and reveals the site to inhabitants. Stripped of excess, yet rich in sensory and spatial experience. Private and transitional spaces are monastic in concept similar to La Tourette, humbly sized with controlled light and view creating intimate and reflective living. This is contrasted by the lower levels open plan living, dining, and kitchen with larger curated views. Each element is conceived as a piece of furniture arranged in and breaking up the space. A singular materiality cocoons you and connects to this wider site which feels both dramatic and nourishing at the same time. The varied openings offer many different perspectives of the shared outlook."
"The house manages many overlapping technical constraints: Its flame-zone bushfire rating, ecological constraints, energy requirements, geotechnical constraints, and access does so effortlessly. We didn’t have the grace of an unseen elevation—even the roof is visible. The house’s ancillaries and services became a integral part of the design and sculptural proposition. Its materiality is fire-resistant and maintenance-free and recedes into the context. Combined with the significant levels of additional insulation and FZ glazing, the house performs at a very high level passively. This house experiments with a new way of living in the landscape canopy. Its simple element gesture conceals the technical challenges of this project offering a model for housing in a challenging environment."
For such a utilitarian object, the pine-shaped, scented cutout holds a surprisingly singular spot in pop culture. The brand has made sure of it.
Not everyone appreciates the bracing perfume wafting from a cardboard tree air freshener named Black Ice, Vanillaroma, or New Car Scent—I know I don’t. But while I would strongly prefer to avoid breathing in a heavily scented object hanging from a car’s rear view mirror, I can’t help but love the instantly recognizable look of a Little Trees cutout.
To this day, Little Trees remains the leader of the pack among car freshener brands, and their unique shape has become a cultural phenomenon. It’s a piece of Americana, a collector’s item, and a visual shorthand for smell. But if you’re a brand and think, maybe we could riff on that a little—say, put a tree on a T-shirt or key ring—think again: Little Trees is known for suing those who infringe on its trademark, and the brand usually wins. We’re free to feel our feelings about Little Trees, but the shape, that’s on lock.
Little Trees is the property of Car-Freshner Corporation, a third-generation family firm headquartered in Watertown, New York. The whiff stretches back to 1952 when a milk truck driver complained about the stench of spilled milk to Julius Sämann, a German-Jewish chemist who’d fled Europe during the Nazi occupation. Two years later, Sämann filed a patent for cardboard with "odor-destroying, air-perfuming substances"—the initial version was a pinup lady before he settled on the now-famous pine tree. It was mostly for practical reasons, as a conifer makes it easier to peel back the wrapper slowly, branch by branch, to prolong the smell for up to seven weeks.
Royal Pine was the first fragrance, followed quickly by Spice and Bouquet. As drivers across the country took to this practical solution to an unpleasant tang, the company wasted no time expanding the range. Many have been fruity and spicy, like Cinnamon Apple, Moroccan Mint Tea, and Lavender, while others more ambiguous like Pure Steel, Heat, and Supernova. Today, Little Trees are sold all over the world, in parts of Europe known as Wunder-Baum or Arbre Magique, making the dangling tree an internationally recognized fix for terrible odors everywhere.
There are more than 30 classic Little Trees scents, each with different imagery on the same trademark shape.
Photo by Jammer Gene via Adobe Stock
But it’s the shape we love. "I have one that smells like surfboard wax. It hasn’t had a smell coming from it in months, but I still like seeing it flopping from the rear view when I have the windows down," says Jason Kress, cofounder and creative director of Washington, D.C., design agency Clever, and self-described "car guy." Kress thinks Little Trees are a mainstay in car culture: "It’s almost like a badge of honor that you wear, down to the type of Little Tree you hang from your mirror." Kress says the "masculine, cologne-smelling" Black Ice is especially popular among Honda drivers, a group he used to belong to before he moved on to VWs and Audis, whose drivers he says are more into Piña Colada, which is "more of a fashion statement."
There are currently 33 classic Little Trees to choose from, with thriving forums of collectors on TikTok and Reddit who hunt for rare special releases and discontinued scents. Kress says he’s seen up to "fifty or so stacked [in cars], as a tongue-in-cheek flex." While he points out there are a lot more elegant (and frankly, better-smelling) car fresheners on the market, Kress thinks Little Trees appeals with its cheerful simplicity and low price: "That amount of joy for a dollar, that’s a pretty good deal! There’s so much variety, so you can make a statement with that dollar."
The ubiquitousness of Little Trees might fool us into thinking we’re at liberty to make our own uses for it. But if you’re a brand tempted to tap in on its symbolism you will soon feel the wrath of Big Tree. When fashion house Balenciaga made a Little Trees–shaped keychain in 2018, it charged $275 for a leather trinket with a nod to retro Americana—and Little Trees sued for trademark infringement. The year after, the company served European budget airline RyanAir for using its image to advertise the airline’s car rental service. Dog toy maker Chewy was informed in 2021 that the pine is not for sharing, and two years ago, Meta was put on notice for failing to take down infringing posts from third parties selling stickers and T-shirts carrying the Little Trees trademark.
Angela Langlotz, a trademark lawyer operating out of Dallas, Texas, remembers the green tree hanging from the dashboard knob of her aunt’s Ford Mustang when she was a child—this is the kind of "intangible goodwill" that Little Trees has built over decades and is keen to control. "I think Little Trees have been appropriately aggressive," says Langlotz, suggesting that they’re just protecting what’s theirs. A trademark is meant to be an exclusive identifier, she explains, so if you let things slide to the point where people no longer associate your brand with your company, you could actually end up losing your trademark rights.
That means when Old Navy puts your trademark on a T-shirt emblazoned with "Keeping it Fresh," it may be best to nip things in the bud—at least that seems to be Little Trees’ attitude. "Then, pretty soon, you get a reputation for being a formidable enforcer of your trademark rights, and people just leave you alone," says Langlotz. This may explain why Little Trees doesn’t just go after large corporations; in 2016, the company sued a nonprofit called Sun Cedar, which helps at-risk individuals get back on their feet, for making a tree-shaped cedar ornament, and two years later, it informed the Bob Ross merchandising company that regardless of how Ross telling viewers to paint "happy little trees" to cover their mistakes, there would be only one diminutive arboreal in town.
Little Trees’ journey from smell peddler to cultural icon has benefited from some memorable pop culture endorsements. "You’ll find one in every car. You’ll see."—that’s the famous line from the 1984 cult sci-fi black comedy Repo Man, which was ultimately a teardown of ’80s consumerism but did a lot to tighten the brand’s associations with American car culture by placing its products in various scenes. "That film is a big part of why some car people are obsessed with Little Trees, sometimes in an ironic hipster way," says Phil Greden, an automotive journalist whose pen name is Murilee Martin. Greden has taken over 10,000 photographs of Little Trees in junked cars over the past 18 years, across the U.S. and overseas. "In junkyards in the U.S., probably ninety-five percent of air fresheners are going to be Little Trees," says Greden, explaining that it’s often the Black Ice and New Car scents. "In the Deep South people like the fruitier ones, like Coconut, Watermelon, and Strawberry.... I think because it’s so humid and they need a more powerful scent to mask the mildew." Greden also finds more clusters in hotter areas—he fondly recalls what he calls the "Charlotte Stack," named for the thick decks of Little Trees air fresheners he saw hanging from the rear view mirrors of many cars in a North Carolina wrecking yard—whereas in dry areas, like his hometown of Denver, Colorado, cars usually have just the one.
The vapors can get overwhelming pretty fast. Little Trees actually provided unscented props to save the noses of the Repo Man film crew, and overly perfumed rideshares are such a common complaint that Lyft has started offering fragrance-free rides as a premium option. When Greden was an official at 24 Hours of Lemons, an endurance race for cars bought for $500 or less, one of the penalties for misbehaving drivers included hanging 50 Little Trees air fresheners inside their cars. "You could smell it as they drove by at a hundred miles an hour," he says. "It was awful." Greden likes to hang his own Little Trees outside for six months to get the odor out, and then enjoy them more as decor.
Despite the brand’s eagerness to defend its trademark, the company behind Little Trees doesn’t seem too concerned about what people say about it. My request for an interview with a representative was politely rebuffed by Nikki in consumer relations, who only remarked that the company "recognize[s] the unique role that LITTLE TREES has played both within the air freshener category and in popular culture over the years." They hardly ever seem to talk to the press—the rare exceptions being when Jody LaLone, the former longtime president of Car-Freshner Corporation, told the New York Times in 2012 that they’d sold billions of units, "Probably right up there with the number of hamburgers McDonald’s sells," and in 2014, when U.K. car dealer Arnold Clark interviewed the brand’s European sales and marketing director who compared the secrecy around Little Trees’s scent recipes to that of Coca-Cola.
Meanwhile, Little Trees occupies our cultural imagination as the car freshener of record, the shape widely celebrated as a classic design. So maybe saying nothing is the smartest move? "Little Trees have been around for so long, I don’t think they need the conversation," says Kress. "They’re doing just fine—their products sell themselves."
Top photo by Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune/MCT/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
Chaim Romano, who built his brand Dolphin & Flamingo on the "colorful, tropical" aesthetic, tells us how to find the best pieces from the state’s still-popular style.
Welcome to Good Vintage, a series that goes behind the scenes with furniture resellers and dealers to find out how they got their start, where they get their stuff, and what inspires them to keep it up. Know of someone we should talk to? Reach out.
"Our rule of thumb is that it needs to be quintessentially Florida," says Chaim Romano, owner of the Delray Beach-based vintage furniture resell company Dolphin & Flamingo, of how he sources his wide-ranging styles. "There’s the side you see in movies and pop culture: the ’80s pink waterfall stuff, the cocaine-era decor, all that. But before that era, there was a massive amount of midcentury modern, French Provincial, Rococo, and other traditional Italian and French styles. Then there’s the tropical side of Florida, from South Florida all the way up to Jacksonville, which is a lot of rattan, bamboo, wicker, and all the Southeast Asian coastal-inspired stuff."
Romano, a South Florida native, stumbled into the resell industry to satisfy his love of the hunt and to learn more about his home state’s history through the lens of its furniture. ("I’ve never been a hoarder, but I hold onto things that remind me of childhood or something I like," he says.) After finding some success selling furniture on Facebook, realtors began calling him to quickly clean out retirement homes with the incentive that he could keep everything. Romano says the work was intimate, often sad, horrible for his asthma, and that "half of the stuff was garbage, but I was learning that these elder people had refined taste in furniture and decor. Their homes would be loaded with premier stuff from 1992."
When Romano launched his business in 2019, customers knew him as the dealer for "postmodern Art Deco Revival, laminated furniture, the pink waterfalls, and the vibrant pastels, which were abundant," he says, because skilled laborers, many of whom were Cuban immigrants in the Miami-Broward area, helped mass produce these styles while offering customization. "You could walk into a showroom, pick a color, pick some shapes, provide measurements, and they loaded up your whole house affordably. That’s what we kept getting truckloads of. A pink bedroom set wouldn’t last to the weekend, although that style has slowed down quite a bit."
Dolphin & Flamingo proprietor Chaim Romano
Courtesy Chaim Romano
These days, Romano says roughly 90 percent of his inventory comprises the "colorful, tropical stuff" found in retirement communities in Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Coral Springs, and the Broward County area—all within 30 minutes from his Delray Beach warehouse. He also stocks a decent amount of antique-looking Asian furniture like lacquered tables accented with Mother of Pearl inlays and illustrated room dividers originating from places like China or Korea. "It’s surprising how much Asian furniture is totally quintessential to South Florida. Antiquity always uplifts a place and it’s beautiful to have in a room," says Romano.
So who’s buying most of this old Floridian furniture? Some of it stays local, but the bulk of Romano’s sales are in the Northeast, Texas, Southern California, and the Midwest. "L.A. is probably our number three market. New York is number one," he says. If you’re a shopper based in a faraway city, it helps to know what you’re getting yourself into when buying online. So here, Romano shares his advice for how customers can get the best value for their buck.
Buy direct for the best prices
Laminate dressers and end tables make up a sizable portion of Romano’s inventory, as do colorful prints and paintings and distinctive lamps.
Courtesy Chaim Romano
Romano lists pieces on resell platforms like Chairish, 1stDibs, and Etsy for discoverability, but if customers are able to take that extra step, Romano recommends they seek out the same piece on the official Dolphin & Flamingo site and buy direct for the best rates. "We’re at the whims of the platforms and have no control over [their fees and shipping structures], but when you go on our website and add something to your cart and put in your zip code, you’re going to get a unique shipping price upfront," he says. "Customers should ask dealers for a shipping price based on location," rather than paying a fixed fee provided by resell platforms.
The cones are quietly integrated into sleek millwork units, from living room shelving to a headboard.
Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.
From the Architect: "A 818-square-foot flat in a loft conversion dating from the 1990s has been completely reimagined. Where rooms, woodchip wallpaper, and laminate flooring once dominated, a spacious, light-filled living area now unfolds. The floor plan opens up seamlessly toward the long glazed frontage, uniting the kitchen, dining, and living areas into a single, cohesive zone.
"The dark mahogany-veneered ceiling sets the tone, a material reminiscent of the 1960s that runs like a common thread through all areas. Together with a sand-colored cast floor, this creates a calm, warm color palette reminiscent of Japanese interiors. The kitchen unit, crafted from matte-finish stainless steel, provides a cool contrast and deliberately keeps the wall surface behind it simple.
"In the sleeping area, the restful zone and wet area merge: the bath rests half-recessed on a low platform, with the shower and washbasin concealed behind it. A separate guest bathroom with glossy, reddish-brown tiles in a retro style provides a distinctive accent. A sound system, invisibly integrated into the wooden panelling, rounds out the design."
