I'On: Columns Sell Houses

"Much of the new construction has followed the national trend of New Urbanism, in which builders recreate an old-fashioned streetscape, complete with double-stacked porches and town squares, on tracts of suburban land. The most direct way to signal this new traditionalism, builders say, is columns, which can cost as little as $100 for a slim, simple design to more than $10,000 apiece for ornate or enormous models... his principle has been taken to its logical extreme at I'On, where historic-looking homes feature the deep porches and tall windows of colonial Charleston and Savannah. About a third of its 762 planned homes, which sell for $400,000 to $2 million, are built; scores more stand half-finished on newly cleared land, naked skeletons of plywood and Tyvek wrap."