Builder John Hall is a realist.
He knows that in this era of HGTV and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” that “99 percent of the people coming through show homes are looking at the decorating” rather than at the house.
“It’s that 1 percent that are looking for a home that we are struggling to attract,” said Hall, above the bang of hammers and the shouts of workers.
Hall and his crew were racing to finish the Lily Rose model, one of 10 custom houses in the 2006 Gallery of Homes, which opened Friday and runs until July 23 at the Tall Oaks development in Elgin.
The show, sponsored by the Home Builders Association of Greater Fox Valley and DuPont Tyvek, is expected to attract 30,000 people and is the first Gallery since 2002.
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The houses, ranging from 4,000 to 5,500 square feet, are priced between $975,000 and $1.6 million. In fact, the event is billed as the only one in the Chicago area with so many million-dollar homes in one location.
The lengthy hiatus since the last show was not due to lack of interest, but to the absence of a proper venue, said Ray Budde, executive vice president for the builders’ group.
“We had been searching far and wide for an ideal location worthy of showcasing the caliber of quality home craftsmanship that has become the hallmark of our show,” he said. “Our goal was to find a naturally scenic site with an irresistible topography–a property with plenty of mature trees, lush landscaping and spacious lots.”
In that, the sponsors have succeeded. The builders provided lush lawns and plantings around the houses at the Wyndham Deerpoint Homes development. But what makes the streetscape dramatic is houses of different heights and at different setbacks tucked between what nature provided–mature oaks and other sizable trees.
Home shows sponsored by Fox Valley and other Chicago-area builder trade groups usually take a year to organize from the time the site is set to the opening of models.
The shows are fundraisers for the builders’ groups to pay for operating, charitable and lobbying efforts. As important, they are a promotional and marketing venue to show off the craftsmanship and styles of the members.
The reappearance of this showcase and at least two others by area builder groups couldn’t come at a better time. As the housing market slows, the shows give those who build a handful of homes a year an opportunity to reach a wider audience than the usual network of client referrals.
“It is a very difficult market right now,” said Vincent Fiore, president of St. Charles-based Fiore Builders, who is participating for the first time in the Gallery. “I feel there is a need to get my name out there. The housing market is on the downturn. You need to be aggressive.”
“We do a fair share of business from the show,” said Hall, one of several family members working in the 35-year-old St. Charles business founded and named for his father, John Hall.
The company got clients for three new homes when it participated in the 2002 Gallery.
According to Hall, each buyer wanted something entirely different: a 2,700-square foot ranch-style home in Woodstock, a 4,500 home two-story in Elburn and a farmhouse-style home in Batavia. Walking through, each client liked some aspect of the show house and asked enough questions to become comfortable enough to hire the builder.
They carefully note the floor plans, touch the woodwork, knock on doors, check out the windows and trim, and ask lots of questions. They also take cards for future reference.
Builders participating in this show, unlike production builders, are accustomed to working on individual homes and as such can be flexible about floor plans and build in a variety of prices, he noted.
“Even in this neighborhood, we can do $500,000 packages,” Hall said.
So why not display homes in that price range?
“We got bit by the show bug,” admitted Hall, who said the opportunity to showcase a $4,000 Kohler bathtub instead of the standard $1,000 model was too tempting to pass up. The chance to build an elaborate kitchen, crammed with the newest equipment, with no client restraints, was as compelling to builders wanting to strut their stuff as to showgoers.
“It is the million-dollar homes that get more people through the door,” he pointed out.
True enough. And for those who make the trip, there is plenty to see. Some of the highlights:
– Rounded elements. Whether it is windows or rooms, round is in. A few years ago, rounded corners had made a return as a fine detail for better homes, but now rooms are round as in the turret at the corner of the Astoria model by Elgin-based Tim Kobler Custom Homes and the rotunda-like vestibule, with its painted ceiling of sky and clouds. On the second floor, a loft in the Victorian turret suffuses the interior with natural light and serves as a sitting room for two bedrooms on either side.
In other models, the morning room next to the kitchen in the Celebration model by TimberMill Properties of Elgin is a curved wall of windows. The John Hall Homes model has a rounded “conservatory,” decorated with a Christmas tree (in July) off the living and dining rooms.
– Traditional styling. With the exception of TimberMill’s “early American Georgian,” which I would call American Four-Square on steroids, and Acorn Properties’s stone Cape Cod-influenced entry, most of the exteriors and interiors of these houses have touches of Tuscan, Spanish or French styling.
Lynn Amore of Geneva-based Amore Homes said she and husband Paul were trying to give their Normandy Stonehedge model “a renovated rather than new look.”
– Stone age. The amount of natural or natural-look stone facades or trim on the front of the houses to the stone pavers in the patios is notable. In many ways, stone has become the new brick, a sign of a sturdy, well-built home. The amount expended on stone for interiors is equally impressive from the marble bathrooms to huge granite kitchen islands.
The master bath in the Seville Manor built by SeBern Homes of St. Charles boasts a combination or marble and onyx. The 8-by-6-foot granite kitchen island in Grace Margaret model by D. Dorrance & Son Custom Builders, Elgin, is one of the most impressive.
– Surface treatments. Any surface, whether wall, floor or ceiling is fair game for decoration and special treatments, many of them highly tactile. Look for mosaic tiling in kitchens and baths, elaborate painting on ceilings and fancy inlays on the floors.
Multilayer plaster walls are studded with medallions in the powder room at the Normandy Stonehedge model, which also has an elaborate wall mural of a hunting scene in the den or home office.
A raised copper-look wall covering is in the powder room of La Villa Fiore. There is a painted pastoral scene over the front door of the two-story entry in the Grace Margaret and basket weave tile trim in the second-floor laundry room.
– Hidden details. Silvestri Custom Homes of St. Charles was one of the builders showing a walk-in pantry hidden behind the paneling of the kitchen cabinetry. Although the builder’s Siena model has numerous European influences, it is all 21st Century behind the walls with a “smart home” computer system that controls the heat, cooling, lights and security system, operated from a wireless keyboard.
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There is an easy-to-overlook built-in cappucino-maker in the wall of the kitchen in the Fiore house and an open shower room behind a partial wall in the TimberMill entry. A similar shower is next to the whirlpool in the master bath of the Pietra model by Acorn Properties.
– Lower-level lowdown. In a switch from many recent new home showcases, only half of the builders such as Burnham Custom Homes, Elgin, and Fiore chose to decorate lower levels, formerly known as basements, leaving the space for future expansion.
Of those who did show decorated lower levels, the space in La Villa Fiore was displayed as a elaborate game room with card table, pool table, sizable bar and full bath.
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2006 Gallery of Homes
Sponsored by: Home Builders Association of Greater Fox Valley and DuPont Tyvek.
What: 10 custom homes from $975,000 to $1.6 million.
Where: Tall Oaks subdivision, Elgin.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday (closed Wednesday) and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday until July 23.
Price: $15 a ticket at gate/$2 discount coupon at www.buildfoxvalley.com
Getting there: Take U.S. 20 west to Plank Road, turn left on Plank, left again at Russell Road and proceed to the Gallery of Homes entrance.
For further information: www.buildfoxvalley.com or call 630-587-1700.
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