Buyers visiting most new-home sales centers typically get a folder with inserts on prices, amenities and floor plans.
But at Cambridge Lakes in northwest suburban Pingree Grove, visitors to the Horizon Home Series sales center get a glossy shopping bag, a builder-produced magazine dubbed Horizons and blueprint-like floor plans that unfurl to nearly 3 feet.
The sales information, right from the get-go, screams “new, different, young!”
The marketing is appealing–and memorable.
The homes, unfortunately, are not.
The Horizon homes are among the popular big-box houses that provide good interior volume and can be built with production-like efficiency to keep prices down. But that affects the floor plans.
The two-car garage takes up a sizable chunk of the first floor. The first-floor living area is wrapped in an L-shape around the garage. The payoff is really on the second floor, where the space over the garage adds considerable square footage to upstairs living.
Sold primarily to first-time buyers and couples with young and growing families, the homes have become so popular, it is possible, in the future, they will be as emblematic of the first decade of the 21st Century as ranch-style floor plans were for the 1950s.
The Horizon Series is just one of several housing types sold by Cambridge Homes at its massive 1,000-acre Cambridge Lakes project just west of Elgin. The development is planned for more than 2,500 residences, from townhouses to second and third move-up homes, in what is essentially a small town in the making.
More than 230 Horizon homes were sold the first year. There are three furnished models next to a tot lot in the heart of the development.
Though it is hard to fault the homes for total square footage–one might quibble about space allocation, but more about that later–there is a sameness about the exteriors that defies efforts to individualize them with decorative brick, a porch and a covered entry.
The Paramount, the biggest and most expensive of the models, which serves as the Horizon sales office, surprisingly has the least curb appeal. The totally flat two-story facade is covered in brick, perhaps in an attempt to look like a Georgian-style home. But with no bays, porches or dormers to break the flat plane, the front looks boring and static.
There’s a limited menu of standard features. All houses are built on a slab. Partial or full basements are among the upgrades offered, as is air conditioning. This allows those on a tight budget to pay only for what they want or need. Good idea. But such buyers will want to carefully compare how much the upgrades are costing to make sure the upgrades are a better deal than a higher-priced house with more standard features.
Budget buyers first will want to visit the Grandview, priced from $244,000, the model with the fewest options.
The front door opens directly into the living/dining room, roughly 16 by 19 feet, with little to break the winter winds from sweeping into the room. Behind the living/dining area is a discreet and comfortable powder room.
Behind the powder room, across the back of the house, is a narrow corner kitchen that opens to a breakfast area and the family room.
The second floor has a sizable master bedroom, about 19 by 17 1/2 feet, with a large private bath and two secondary bedrooms, which each could accommodate a twin bed and small chest of drawers. The laundry room and 16-by-12-foot loft, which could be a playroom, second family room or potential fourth bedroom, is also on this level.
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The four-bedroom Vista, with 2,800 square feet, and base priced from $256,000, has a family room and small first-floor den or home office on the main floor. This is my favorite plan of the three because the room proportions are mostly right.
The one glaring exception–and it is a biggie–is the kitchen, which has almost no counter space and very few cabinets.
The combined living/dining area is 18 by 22 feet, large enough to have both a formal seating area and formal dining table without being cramped.
The 14-by-17-foot family room behind the dining room is cozy, if not overly large. It opens to the breakfast area and the kitchen, concentrated in one corner. The door to the garage opens into the kitchen. Just beyond is the powder room, as well as a 10-by-11-foot den or home office.
The stairs to the second floor are between the living/dining room and the family room. Upstairs, the master bedroom suite is less grand than in the other models, but the size of the bedrooms is more balanced. That gives the youngsters who will be in the secondary rooms, each roughly 13 by 14 feet or more, space to grow.
The master bedroom is 13 by 18 feet and the master bath, shown with both tub and shower, an upgrade, allows more than enough space for two people.
The loft or optional fifth bedroom at 14 by 22 feet is truly big enough for a second family room. The laundry room also is on this floor.
The largest and most expensive model is the 3,018-square-foot Paramount, priced from $266,000. The home has a formal dining room, family room, and den on the first floor and four bedrooms and a loft, roughly 12 1/2 by 12 1/2 feet, on the second floor. It could be an optional fifth bedroom.
This is the most formal of the floor plans, but it is my least favorite. There is an effort to jam too many rooms into too little space on the first floor.
There is a strictly-for-show living room, 10 1/2 by 12 1/2 feet. Behind the living room is the stairway to the second floor and behind the stairs is a tiny formal dining room, at 12 by 10 feet barely big enough for table and chairs, let alone a sideboard.
However, this model has the biggest and most beautiful–and upgraded–of the kitchens in the models. A corner room with plenty of cabinets and an island, an upgrade, it has a doorway to the dining room and is open to the breakfast area and family room. A den, 13 by 10 feet, and powder room are tucked between the garage and the family room.
The second-floor master bedroom is huge, 20 by 20 feet, with a large private bath and two ample walk-in closets. The secondary bedrooms vary from 16 by 13 feet to roughly 11 1/2 by 11 1/2. The loft in this home is suitable for a home office and feels cramped compared with the other models.
Two important points. Many builders say buyers choose a home based on the kitchen and baths. But, with the exception of the Paramount, the biggest and most expensive model, two of the three kitchens are decidedly unremarkable.
And while second-floor closet space is excellent, there is next to no storage on the first floor for those who choose basic slab construction, instead of a full or partial basement.
Without a basement, the ample first-floor coat closets in the models must include the hot water heater and furnace, leaving only one small closet in which to stash stuff from the vacuum to the kids’ coats and boots.
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Cambridge Lakes-Horizon Series, Pingree Grove
Base price range: $231,000 to $267,000
FACTS AND FIGURES
Two-bedroom, two-bath ranch plans as well as 2-story plans with three or four bedrooms, 2 to 2 1/2 baths, all with a two-car garage.
Square feet: 1,805 to 3,018
Monthly assessment: $46
Developer: Cambridge Homes, a D.R. Horton company
Web site: www.mycambridgehome.com
AMENITIES
12 by 12-inch vinyl tile in foyer, laundry room, kitchen and baths, carpeting in living room and bedrooms. Whirlpool kitchen appliances with gas range and hood. Walk-in closet in master bedroom and most secondary bedrooms; sodded front yard and seeded side and rear.
Community: Part of a development planned for 2,519 new homes with lakes, parks and community center and swimming pools.
GETTING THERE
Address: 810 Glen Cover Lane, Pingree Grove
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Phone: 847-984-4884
Take Interstate Highway 90 to Illinois Highway 47, exit south and continue 3 miles to Illinois Highway 72 (Higgins Road). Turn left or east on Illinois 72 and drive one mile to the development entrance.
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