Innovation is often the ability to reach into the past and bring back what is good, what is beautiful, what is useful, what is lasting. A house should never allow the eye to settle in one place. It should smile at you and create fantasy.
The best homes have something to say about the people who live in them. There are two things that make a home timeless: a sense of history and a piece of the future. I like an exterior that defies labeling. I don't really want someone to walk into a home and know that I did it.