Adding Height to the Facade

Just met with the architects today.   I asked them to find a way to give the facade more height.  These days, most homes built in town consist of 10ft first floor and 9ft second floor and a 40ft high roof ridge-line.  The homes have a very tall stance from the street. 

Due to the steep slope of our property and the zoning laws in town, we can only have the ridge height at around 30ft from the street level since the total height (40ft) is measured from the lowest exterior point to the highest structure on the roof (excluding chimney).  At least we get to have a walkout basement.

Here is a picture of what I had in mind:

Picture from: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/decor/msg0221483210284.html

I want to do something similar to area above the front door.  Let’s  see what the architects come up with .