Building your Dream Home?

Maybe it’s a Low-country beauty overlooking a sun-kissed green or a contemporary A-frame along the fairway. Whatever and wherever your imagination goes, the dream homes provided by Golf Magazine, The Progressive Farmer and HGTV demonstrate the latest trends in laying a solid foundation for your dream home.

When plans go from daydream to drafting board to job site, it’s important to involve skilled professionals who share your vision and enthusiasm. Choosing a qualified architect to map out your dream home is a necessity. In the case of Golf Magazine’s Dream Home at Reynolds Plantation on Georgia’s Lake Oconee. Cincinnati architect Don Beck created plans for a lavish 4,500-square foot home with four master bedrooms and a locker room. Getting a feeling for how willing the architect is to work within your design requests is also essential. Emphasizing country living at its best, The Progressive Farmer dream house is designed for people with a penchant for rural life.

Building your dream home might mean incorporating your plans into a themed community – design restrictions and architectural standards. Builders of The Progressive Farmer dream house at McLendon Hills, a lake and equestrian community near Pinehurst, N.C., incorporate cottage influences into the design. HGTV’s dream home at Cumberland Harbour in St. Mary’s, Georgia has both coastal and Victorian elements.

Many of the nation’s top builders and suppliers contributed to the materials and amenities of each dream home – products you’ll want to consider using once two-by-fours start going up. Golf Magazine’s dream home features paint provided by Ace Hardware, broadband phone service by AT&T, and state-of-the-art appliances and consumer electronics by Best Buy. Your builder should be able to recommend materials that are both energy-efficient and consistent with your home’s design theme. Altogether – from breaking ground to laying a welcome mat – you can expect the construction of your dream home to take a year to a year and a half.

Sometimes you need to see it to believe it. To stir would-be dream homebuilder’s imaginations, each of the 2004 dream homes spent several months open to the public.

In addition to being featured in its November 2004 issue, Golf Magazine’s dream house at Reynolds Plantation was open to the public. According to Bill Houghton, Vice President of Marketing for Reynold’s Plantation, approximately 17,000 people toured the home in six months. The Progressive Farmer Idea House and Farmstead was open for tours this summer and was featured in the August 2005 issue. HGTV’s dream home tours at Cumberland Harbour debuted in May 2007 with a Winner’s Weekend that awarded one of approximately 35 million contestants the dream house itself, worth $1.2 million. Also a giveaway event, the HGTV 2006 dream house is under construction at Grey Rock at Lake Lure, NC.

At 4,500 square feet, Golf Magazine’s dream house features a spacious, “’Hunt Club’ interior with leather as a fabric of choice, lending a ‘sense of sophistication’”, according to interior designer Jan Vorderburg. Four master bedrooms with accompanying bathrooms guarantee a luxurious stay even guests will enjoy. Golf Magazine publisher Chris Whitman said, “The Golf Magazine dream house has exceeded expectations on every level…truly a dream come true for golfers.”

Recalling America’s rural past, The Progressive Farmer 3,500 square-foot dream home at McLendon Hills is “designed for people who choose the country as their place to live…with stalls and a tack room, the tiered garden, the pond and pastures. It literally sets the standard for country living,” says Jack Odle, Editor in Chief of The Progressive Farmer.

The warm breezes of coastal Georgia influenced the building of HGTV’s Cumberland Harbour dream home. The 3,000 square-foot, fully furnished home includes Victorian influences that harkens to a by gone era. A 230-foot, screened-in boat dock allows bug-free access to local waterways. “We want every Dream Home to have its own identity,” said Atlanta consultant Jack Thomasson, who contributed to the 2004 HGTV home.

Capitalizing on its 2004 dream home success at Cumberland Harbour, Land Resource Companies (LRC) was again honored to play host to HGTV’s dream house giveaway. Currently under construction at Grey Rock resort in western, North Carolina – a mountain living community also forged by LRC – the 2006 HGTV dream home promises the same high quality and attention to detail as its coastal counterpart. “I am very pleased that we had the opportunity to offer another community that is on the level of Cumberland Harbour”, said Bob Ward, President and CEO of Land Resource Companies, with respect to the 2006 dream home site.

Originally appeared in Living Southern Style Magazine, Winter 2006