Visitability Means:

- One zero step entrance on an accessible path of travel from the street, sidewalk or driveway

- Doorways that provide 32 inches clear space throughout the home's main floor and hallways that provide 36 inches of clear width

- Basic access to a half or (preferably) full bath on the main floor

Large Homes with Open Plans Provide Design Opportunities

An extremely wide sidewalk provides access to the front door of a dark home with cedar and brown brick siding. Violet shrubbery droops over a portion the pathway. A smiling couple wearing blue shirts and tinted glasses pose on the accessible pathway in front of their house. The woman places her hand on the man's back, while he sits in a wheelchair holding a newspaper in his left hand and a cup of coffee between his legs. A wide porch with a brown, zero-step entrance door allows a variety of decorations without interfering with the entrance, including a wooden bear statue, a white crouched gargoyle, and a wooden bench covered in plants and sticks. A long, expensive-looking red wood ramp curves up around the back of the house past garden features and paving stones. The ramp has cables that prevent children and wheelchairs from falling off the ramp underneath the black metal guardrails. A short ramp leads to a forested yard. The ramp is lined with large rocks, and is made from paving stones set in concrete. A small, black rubber wedge turns a door with a several-inch ledge into a zero-step accessible entrance. A reddish wooden door hangs open, with a soft, black lever-style handle. A bemused man holding coffee in a wheelchair looks at a fireplace while in a room with an open-floor plan, while his wife walks into another room through a pair of sliding barn-style doors designed to maximize usable floor space. A blue-shirted woman with grey hair bound into a pony tail tests out a sliding white pocket door while her husband watches. A man in a wheelchair travels down a spacious, stained wood floor hallway past a reachable thermostat control and lever-handled double doors while his wife fiddles with something just out of the picture. A man in a wheelchair travels through a forested yard along a curving, smooth, paving stone pathway lined with decorative rocks.

This large home, tucked away in the forest, has numerous pathway styles that provide access to the owners and their friends.

Concrete, wood, stone and rubber features provide zero-step entrances and make the home's entrances usable by all visitors.

Inside, lever handles, sliding doors, and open floor space allow ease of travel throughout the home.

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