Say hello to an old friend

AS workers put the finishing touches on her just-minted home amid a tangle of electrical cords and ladders, Pam McGregor ticks off her plans, not for the inside, but the outside of her house -- her front porch. "We're going to pull the travertine out here, put a rocker there, a love seat and some rattan chairs," the mother of four shouts over the roar of power tools.

The appointments are no afterthought for McGregor, who chose the Woodbury development in Irvine for its focus on neighborhood, something she believes this open-air space will promote.

"When you pull your living room outside, it encourages people to get out more," she says. "Parents can sit out and watch their kids, say hello to neighbors."

After largely disappearing in the 1950s, the front porch is staging the inklings of a comeback, thanks to homeowners like McGregor. The number of new houses with porches is up 11% over the last decade, according to the National Assn. of Homebuilders, and porches figure prominently in Southern California developments such as Columbus Grove and Columbus Square in Irvine and Tustin. In Orange, the city planning committee has mandated porches for a project of Craftsman-style homes.

Why the trend, especially here in Southern California, where residential architecture has historically focused on the private realm of the backyard? In a word, isolation. And a growing desire to avoid it.

Transient careerists are in the mood for a home, not a house -- a community that can provide personal connections and a sense of belonging. Baby boomers remember suburban blocks bustling with kids playing ball and neighbors sharing burgers; Generation X and Y home buyers hark back through movies and TV to vintage neighborhoods where everyone knew your name.

Merely building a porch, however, doesn't mean shared lemonades and Parcheesi will come along with it. Architects face the challenge of melding a traditional design element with the modern realities of wider streets, smaller lots and concerns about privacy. Some porches end up as cosmetic window dressing.

"Many porches that you see in the recent homes have been token," says David Ko, a residential designer with Santa Ana-based Angeleno Associates, which is calling for full-size porches for the home of Angels baseball star Garret Anderson. Some modern versions of the porch don't even have enough space for a person to sit, Ko says.

There's also ambivalence about how social neighbors want to be.