Luxury lies in the details

Builder Chris Noon can’t say when the cost of a kitchen for his custom-home clients reached the combined price of four automobiles, but he knows “where we used to spend $50,000 to $60,000 on a kitchen, it seems it is over $100,000 for every kitchen today.”

“Every year we are spending more and more on cabinetry,” said Noon, of Schaumburg-based Chestnut Hill Development, which builds homes priced from about $1 million.

The walk-in pantry that once was a kitchen focal point for his firm’s high-end customers has been replaced by elaborate wood cabinetry — sort of like kitchen armoires — filled with all manner of gliding shelves and drawers, special-use compartments and doors that silently close. Add in the commercial-look appliances so popular in recent years and the cost of a kitchen quickly rises.

Noon’s experience is just one glimpse into the world of luxury homes, a category that has grown amid the recent housing boom.

Though definitions of what puts a home in the luxury category are not hard and fast — a recent roundtable of Chicago builders decided it was the upper end of any given market — it is generally a combination of price and home features, some of which will “trickle down” in popularity and will be adapted into the general market.

One million homes in the United States are worth $1 million, more than double the number from five years ago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The largest concentration of such high-priced housing in the Chicago area is in Cook County, with about 25,000 million-dollar homes, the government agency reported.

“The housing boom on the North Shore is like I have never seen in my lifetime,” said architect Charles Page, who has had his own design/build firm for 45 years. From 60 to 80 homes are torn down annually in tony suburbs like Winnetka to make way for new homes, Page said.

He recalled that when he built a $2 million house “seven or eight years ago” it was considered somewhat of risk. Soon half-acre lots in Winnetka will go for that amount of money and that is before the cost of the new house, he said.

The luxury boom is not limited to Cook County or traditional old-money neighborhoods. With low interest rates on mortgages and the hot housing market, more buyers have been trading up into the luxury category, extending the geographic boundaries of where expensive housing is found.

Woodstock, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, was the site of the recent 2005 Parade of Homes Luxury Edition sponsored by the Home Builders Association of Greater Chicago, which showcased 10 homes priced from $750,000 to $1.6 million.

“You are following what was the concentric circles of post-World War II housing development,” said Chris Coleman, president of the Dearborn-Buckingham Group Inc. in Northfield, describing the pattern of growth.

If new homes in the Wheaton and Glen Ellyn area are selling for $800,000 to $1 million, buyers willing to pay $750,000 to $800,000–“which is still a lot of money”–are looking in Lombard, a western suburb not previously known for luxury homes, Coleman said.

Not long ago if a home was big it automatically landed in the luxury category, but Jeff Samuels, president of Northbrook-based Samuels Homes, said he is seeing a different definition today.

“There is a trend away from sheer volume and more emphasis on quality, warmth, intimacy and how well a house functions for the family,” he said.

The rich still build large houses, but fewer buyers are ordering huge 8,000-square-foot houses, opting instead for 3,500 to 4,500 square-foot houses with lavish detailing such as multipiece molding and transom windows, Noon said.

Some other trends by luxury-home builders:

– High ceilings, bigger doors. Several builders are seeing a trend away from rooms with two-story ceilings, but the standard ceiling for most rooms is higher. Ten-foot ceilings–not the old 8-foot ceilings– are the norm for main floors in luxury housing. That height is increasingly common on lower levels, formerly known as basements, which have become the family living floor.

The higher standard ceiling gives the feeling of space and luxury but cuts the echo effect of most two-story spaces, which are loud when combined with second floor bridges and young children, Noon observed.

Buyers also are opting for more drama at the front door.

Juli Jacobs, a partner in Jacobs Homes in Deerfield, noted, “We are seeing a trend to larger doors–8, 9 feet and bigger.”

– High-tech and more high-tech. Though mostly hidden from view, sound, video and lighting systems continue to grow in popularity with custom buyers as they become easier to operate and the buyers are more comfortable with such complicated systems.

“Spending $50,000 to $60,000 for audio and video systems is not uncommon,” Noon said. Centralized lighting systems are growing in popularity so that the owner can lower the lights for entertaining or increase them for a family dinner.

The advent of “smaller, more compact” electronics such as the flat-screen plasma television allows both the builder and homeowner “to focus on the architectural details of the room,” Samuels said. He is installing multiple plasma-screen televisions in new homes and high-end remodeling projects. In one recent project, the 52-inch television over the fireplace in an Italian villa-style home is hidden behind a copy of a Cezanne painting. When the owners want to watch television, the painting, like a motorized window shade, lifts up to reveal the screen.

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Another 42-inch plasma television was installed on a revolving portion of the wall, something like an old hidden bookcase, on the screen porch. The television is tucked away for security when the family is not watching it, he said.

– Specialized rooms for family living. Home theaters, once a novelty, are practically a standard feature of many new luxury homes. Tim Martin, marketing director for Chic Martin Signature Homes in Vernon Hills, estimates home theaters are in 90 percent of the homes the company builds. But other special rooms are growing in popularity. Several builders noted the current popularity of poker has pushed up requests for card or game rooms used both by kids and adults.

– Warmer materials. Builders are achieving an intimate, warmer feeling in once-sterile and utilitarian bathrooms through such features as furniture-like cabinetry and colorful sinks. Architect Page says he also is seeing a strong trend toward radiant heating–both under exterior walks and driveways and extending into homes. Radiant heating works particularly well in warming lower levels, noted Curt Langille, president of Lanco Development, Lakewood.

– Convenience and concierge service. Convenience is evident in the specialized kitchen appliances and the duplication of appliances throughout the house. Samuels said he has installed a wine chiller in the lower-level family entertaining area, the butler’s pantry and in the master bedroom suite.

Jacobs has installed six washing machines in her own home to allow all the laundry to be done quickly at one time.

Some buyers want more than convenience, observed Langille, so he is developing a menu of offerings akin to concierge service. The buyers want maintenance. But he added that they also “want snow removal, lawn service, someone to clean and turn on the lights and decorate the Christmas tree.”

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