The housing market may be slow, but builders in this year’s Clark County Parade of Homes have been working at a rapid pace.
Most of the parade’s builders had three or four months to complete the homes due to trouble with stormwater pipes at the original site, West Park Development in Felida.
“We had to make some quick decisions and decided to look for an alternative site,” said Ericka Carlsen, special events director for the Building Industry Association of Clark County, which has hosted the event for 31 years.
The BIA was able to secure the Moongate development in Felida for the event this spring, which meant that when builders got to work, they had no time to waste and no room to scrimp on quality.
“It was the fastest we’ve ever built a house anywhere near that size,” said Mark Philip, owner of Vancouver-based Philip Custom Homes. His crew built the 4,000-square-foot Newcastle home in four months. “We used the contractors we had experience working with. …Without those experienced people, we’d never have made it.”
The parade, off Northwest 127th Avenue and Northwest 48th Court, includes five luxury homes in the $800,000 to $1 million range. Each is unique, but the builders’ common priorities are clear – energy efficiency, luxury kitchens and bathrooms and a polished sense of comfort.
Luxury green
The most common feature among the homes is found behind their walls in energy efficient systems.
“The biggest trend is the green building,” Carlsen said. “We’re going to see that more and more as natural gas and energy prices start to rise.”
All of the homes were built to standards of the National Association of Home Builders’ green building program and two are awaiting certification from the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system and are in the running to earn gold certification.
One of the two, The Green Haus by Portland-based Axiom Luxury Homes, includes a furnace with 95 percent efficiency, reclaimed wood floors and Energy Star light fixtures and appliances. Its landscape has drought-tolerant plants, water-permeable pavers and high-efficiency irrigation.
Axiom Owner Scott Benedetti expects those features will save a homeowner on monthly energy bills and increase the home’s resale value.
“We want to give them something they’ll be able to sell in five years, when green homes will probably be more common,” he said.
Also in the running for LEED certification is The Cottage, built by Vancouver-based Tamarack Luxury Homes.
“The house is 41 percent more efficient than a home built to (standard) code,” said Tamarack President Ryan Zygar.
The Cottage was designed for a customer who wanted modern green features with an old European style. It includes 1,200 square feet of reclaimed wood flooring and a hot water heater with 96 percent efficiency.
Its landscaping has Euro-style raised flower beds and boxes, drought-tolerant plants and an irrigation system with a satellite feed indicating wet weather to prevent overwatering.
For Benedetti and Zygar, building green is part of their building philosophy. For the other builders, a shift toward green practices came from customer demand.
“I’m customer-driven and we’ve never seen more interest in this from our customers than in the last year,” said Philip, a more than 20-year industry veteran. “We want to build products that fit the marketplace.”
That means looking at how small details affect the entire building process, he said.
Deluxe amenities
A more visual parade theme is the presence of artfully designed kitchens and bathrooms.
“Customers expect more,” Carlsen said of the trend. “They want more pizzazz in a master bathroom.”
That expectation has shown itself in the way homeowners spend remodeling dollars – these days, kitchens and bathrooms tend to get remodeled before anything else, she said.
The bathrooms of this year’s parade homes are more like spas than water closets, with heated floors, fireplaces and warm earth-toned paint colors. Large showers and baths are common with designer tile work and showerhead features for steam or therapeutic jets.
In the kitchens, stainless steel and energy-efficient appliances are common and accommodate wine storage or sub-zero temperatures. Also common in the kitchens are spacious granite countertops and wide stove ranges.
“Unique features, as long as they’re not too crazy, are attractive to buyers,” Carlsen said. “You can have not only beauty, but some luxury features that make it a place where you enjoy spending time.”
Casual luxury
“There are a lot of rich colors in the homes and darker woods,” Philip said of this year’s parade homes. “There are no bland homes, no monochromatic homes.”
With the Newcastle, which has a spacious central family room and covered patio with a fireplace and barbecue, Philip aimed to build a “grand home” that was also inviting.
“We build homes for real people, (and) we don’t want to get too far from that,” he said.
In the other homes, casual luxury shows up in expansive living rooms, high angled and vaulted ceilings, picture windows for natural lighting, fireplaces and other stone fixtures.
Outside the bedrooms and bathrooms, the homes tend to have open floor plans with kitchens, living and dining rooms flowing into each other. Entertainment is revealed as a priority with home theater systems, built-in bars and gaming rooms.
BUILDERS: LUXURY HOME MARKET SEES LITTLE SLOWDOWN
This year’s Clark County Parade of Homes includes five luxury homes ranging from about $800,000 to $1 million. The homes are selling, builders said, because the economy has had little effect on luxury home buyers.
Two of the homes were pre-sold and at least two more will likely sell by Sept. 7, when the parade ends, said Ericka Carlsen, special events director for the Building Industry Association of Clark County, which has hosted the event for 31 years.
“Many of our custom builders are still going strong, working with the client who knows exactly the home they want,” Carlsen said. “They’re not going to look for a deal because they know what they want and are willing to spend the money.”
For Scott Benedetti, owner of Portland-based Axiom Luxury Homes, the parade included the third custom home his company has built this year. The company has a couple more on the way, all priced around $800,000.
“A lot of times they don’t require financing or they have two houses,” Benedetti said of his customers.
Mark Philip, owner of Vancouver-based Philip Custom Homes, said that while demand for new homes valued at less than $1 million has slowed, the company completed three custom projects between January and July.
“It’s slowed down, but I would say the homes that are $1 million and above haven’t been affected,” Philip said. “With homes between $500,000 and $1 million, we see a slowing as much as 50 percent from two years ago.”
Charity Thompson can be reached at cthompson@vbjusa.com.
