Homebuyers in North Carolina’s “Triangle” region have long been accustomed to getting what homebuilders have given them: a closed floor plan, with separate rooms and walls everywhere.

But as homeowners in this region — comprising the cities of Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill — have traveled to traditionally warmer climates, where builders have been constructing homes featuring an indoor-outdoor connection for decades, they have returned to the Tar Heel State with a sense of opportunity for their own homes.

Now, their demands for open floor plans and indoor-outdoor living possibilities have been met with homes like Blue Heron Homes' Granville Drive house.

“Customers in the high-end price band have traveled to other markets in the United States, where indoor-outdoor living is conducive to the climate,” says Blue Heron’s Paul Stern, who’s been at the forefront of differentiating custom homes in the Triangle market. “They see kick-ass houses in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida, and then they come home to Raleigh, which has always been a more traditional, closed-in floorplan market.”

In the Granville Drive home, a 20-foot-long by 8-foot-tall Series 600 Multi-Slide Door runs the width of the home’s great room and opens to a massive covered outdoor living space. This 55-foot-long outdoor space, which sits adjacent to a beautiful infinity-edge pool and hot tub, includes a full-size dining table and seating area complete with fireplace and flat-screen TV, built-in space heaters in the ceiling, and even its own bathroom.

“Using multi-slide doors in the Triangle is more leading edge and offers the more affluent client the look and feel that they might have seen while on vacation,” Stern says.

The clean lines and contemporary aesthetics of the giant Western Window Systems multi-slide perfectly complement the home’s other high-end aspects, including a spacious master bathroom, large walk-in closets, a beautiful master bedroom with its own parlor area, and a 30-by-20-foot recreation room on the second floor. Its extra-high ceilings and three dormer windows give the impression from the outside of a third floor.