Meet Four Real Families Who Bought New Homes
Category: Newsroom » Parade of HomesSM » Parade Featured Stories - August 26, 2010
Meet Molly and Dobbin's 3 Kids: Having renovated three homes in the first nine years of their marriage, Dobbin and Molly said enough. “I always wanted to build from the ground up. I got tired of living in the renovation process with three kids,” recalls Molly. “Inevitably a contractor would show up when I was ready to put the kids down for a nap.” Dobbin and Molly were looking for permanency, as well as nostalgic days that all too often seem unobtainable in this fast-paced, sometimes impersonal world.
Dobbin and Molly chose to build in the Medina Meadows neighborhood in Orono for several reasons. They wanted a home they could stay in long-term, a small town feel to the neighborhood, and a smaller school district than Plymouth’s. Medina Meadows fit the bill. An added bonus was that Dobbin grew up six blocks from the family’s new home, where his parents still live. “Our new neighborhood is the best kept secret,” Molly says. “We call it the throwback neighborhood.”
Of the fourteen families currently living in Medina Meadows, six of them have children similar in age to Dobbin and Molly’s three children, who range between the ages of five and 11. “The kids are out every evening playing games,” says Molly, who notes that three homesites are still available. Pick-up baseball, football, and hockey games are common, as are lemonade stands, freeze tag, and craft projects. Molly notes that it’s not unusual for several couples living in the neighborhood to get together at the last minute and throw a few burgers, steaks, or brats on the grill. Two of the families, including Dobbin and Molly’s, actually have dinner bells they ring to call their children home.
The family’s new home is also a throwback to an earlier era. Hickory Fine Homes, in Wayzata, built the classically styled 5,500-square-foot modified Cape Cod home. “It’s a clean architectural style,” says Molly. “It’s very Martha Stewart, traditional yet neutral in the color palette.” Hardwood floors, carrera marble counters in the kitchen, and enamel woodwork add to the classic look.
The family’s former home in Plymouth presented a few problems for the growing family, which also includes two golden retrievers and a pet rabbit. “It was built in the 1990s and set up for that era,” Molly notes. “All three kids would have ultimately had to use the same bathroom.” Today, Molly and Dobbin’s two boys share a Jack-and-Jack bath, while their daughter enjoys her own bathroom. Like most new homes, the open floor plan allows for both casual and formal entertaining and revolves around the kitchen.
The building process was surprisingly smooth. Dobbin, who works in the financial industry, was resolute that the project stay within budget, a concern the builder took to heart. When the couple closed on the home, Dobbin thanked Steve Bohl, owner of Hickory Fine Homes for coming in under budget. “I thought, ‘Dang!’ There would have been a couple more things I would have added had I known the project was under budget,” says Molly, who still got most of what she wanted.
Meet Pat & Julie:
Few people build their first home. Most buy an existing starter home. Not Pat and Julie. “When we were very young, my husband decided to join the military for four years,” explains Julie. “But he loved it and spent 27 years in the Marine Corps.”
Pat and Julie and their two now-grown boys had always lived in rented townhouses and occasionally single-family homes. But regardless of the style of home they were living in, they felt like they were always living on top of their neighbors. “We chose to live on base because it was a safe place to raise our children,” says Julie. “And we were always moving, so we never took the plunge into homeownership.”
Pat’s retirement in November 2008 opened up the possibility that he and Julie could buy their first house. They decided to move back to the Shakopee area, where they both grew up, from Southern California. They were tired of townhomes—which always felt a bit too snug—so they set their sights on building a single-family home. “We wanted to do yard work,” says Julie. “We wanted to have a garden.”
To see what Minnesota builders were building, Pat and Julie decided to tour the Spring 2009 Parade of Homessm. They visited a rambler with a lower-level walkout and decided it offered the perfect layout. “We didn’t want a lower level that felt like a basement,” says Julie. “We wanted a private space for our boys when they come to visit.”
But the couple did not hire the builder of the rambler. Instead they chose a Parade of Homessm builder showing a two-story next door, Donnay Homes, in Maple Grove. “We had looked at many homes and many builders,” says Julie. “I was looking at the aesthetics, and my husband was looking at the actual construction. He liked the quality of Donnay Homes, and we both felt instantly comfortable with Chad Donnay.”
The couple decided to build a walkout rambler in the Maple Glen neighborhood in Prior Lake on a half-acre lot. “We were first-time homebuyers and first-time homebuilders. We were learning as we went along,” notes Julie. “Donnay Homes helped us take it step-by-step and gave us plenty of time to make up our minds on the selections.”
Pat and Julie moved into their new home in April 2010, their eighteenth—and hopefully last—move. At 3,100 square feet, the home provides by far the largest living area Julie and Pat have ever had. “What we love about it is that the laundry, office, and bedroom are all on one level,” says Julie. “We don’t have to climb stairs, which enables us to enjoy our home well into our golden years.” She’s also enjoying her spacious new kitchen.
The couple still has big plans for their yard. “We want to screen in the patio and put in a fire pit,” says Julie. But she and Pat are most excited about eventually planting a vegetable garden, and they are enjoying digging in the dirt, planting trees, shrubs, and plants, and even laying landscape edging. “One of the joys of homeownership for us is designing the yard and landscaping that is uniquely ours,” she adds.
Meet Greg & Debbie:
Greg and Debbie spent 11 years raising their four children in a split-level home in Blaine. They had a large lot with lots of evergreens that dropped needles, flower gardens that required deadheading and weeding, and a lawn that constantly needed mowing. “We took pride in keeping our yard looking nice, but it started to interfere with other things we wanted to do,” says Debbie. Often when visiting their family on weekends up north, Debbie and Greg would find themselves leaving for home early Sunday morning so they could attend to the yard.
Their 2,000-square-foot house had other challenges as well. The split-level design meant that the lower level stayed cool in winter, making it uncomfortable to spend much time there. Already in their early fifties, Greg and Debbie decided a home that offered single-level living would be ideal for the long-term. “It wasn’t a decision we made lightly, though,” says Debbie. They carefully calculated the impact the real estate downturn would have on the sale value of their home and weighed that against the discounts being offered by builders of new homes. “We figured it would be a wash for us, so we decided to take the leap,” she adds.
Attracted to the idea of leaving yard work to someone else, Greg and Debbie chose to build in Blaine’s The Lakes. The development’s detached townhomes offered the couple the independence and privacy of a single-family home with the benefits of association living. It also offered walking trails, acres of interconnected waterways, a public beach with showers, a boathouse, and picnic shelters.
Instead of downsizing, the empty nester couple chose a 2,284-square-foot design from Paul Stanger of Sharper Homes, in Blaine. “We were so impressed with Paul Stanger—his work ethic and expertise—that we asked him to sell our house,” says Debbie. That proved to be a wise decision. Debbie and Greg listed their house in May and closed on the sale in August. “He was also willing to work with us on the selling commission because we were buying one of his new homes,” she adds.
Sharper Homes’ two-bedroom model offered the perfect layout. On the main level, Debbie and Greg had everything they needed, an open floor plan for entertaining their children and possibly future grandchildren, an owners’ suite bedroom and bath, and laundry facilities. The townhome’s loft, which consists of a bedroom, bath, sitting area, and a bonus room built over the garage, offered the perfect spot for three of their four children who live out-of-town to stay when visiting. The bonus room provides a space for Debbie to scrapbook, knit, and sew without feeling like she’s creating a mess.
The building process progressed without a hitch. “The biggest challenge for us was making decisions about what we wanted. There were lots of choices to make,” says Debbie. “But I really can’t say we had any other challenges. Working with Paul Stanger and Sharper Homes has really been a good experience for us.”
Meet Brian & Michelle:
Brian and Michelle loved their 1950’s ranch-style home in Edina. It had a great location, fantastic yard, and was midway between Michelle’s work in downtown Minneapolis and Brian’s work in Bloomington. “Then my husband took over his family’s business, Sundance Golf and Bowl, in Dayton,” says Michelle. That career change and the arrival of two children started them thinking about a move.
“We had decision matrixes, weighing everything from school districts to costs,” says Michelle. “We analyzed it to death for three years.” The deciding factor finally came in March 2009, when Brian and Michelle learned they were going to have another child. “We were going to be a family of five, and our schedules weren’t going to get any easier,” Michelle says. “Moving closer to the golf course would give us more flexibility.”
The time was right for a move, but Michelle wanted to be in the new house before the baby’s due date of November 1. On March 15, the couple contacted a realtor. “We had a list of things that needed to happen,” Michelle notes, including preparing the home for sale and selling it in a down market with time left for the building process.
Over the years, Brian and Michelle had watched Dayton-based Mega Homes create sustainable neighborhoods. They noticed the builder’s commitment to appropriately scaled homes and four-sided architecture—paying as much attention to the side and rear elevations as to the front—and believed Mega Homes was a builder who might share their values. As a hedge against their home selling, Brian and Michelle met with Mega Homes to discuss the possibilities.
On May 7, the day their Edina home went on the market, it sold. “That’s when the clock started ticking,” says Michelle, a partner with JLG Architects who had always hoped to design her own home. But Michelle, already three-months pregnant with two little kids and a full-time job, didn’t have that luxury. “We didn’t have time for me to design this house from scratch, which—including site selection—would have been about a two year process,” says Michelle. “The baby was coming whether we were ready or not.”
Instead, Brian and Michelle worked with Mega Homes to find a lot in the Nature’s Crossing development in Dayton and identified a model plan they could tweak. “We knew the only way we could meet this crazy schedule was to partner with a team that we trusted,” says Michelle. The couple wanted a modern farmhouse, which meant overhauling the exterior design, outfitting the interior with more contemporary influences, and working with the builder to site the house. “We didn’t want a walkout,” says Michelle. “We wanted to be able to let the kids run out the main level right into the backyard rather than onto a second-story deck.”
The building timeline was a bit harried to say the least. “It was a crazy summer,” says Michelle, who was often awake at 2 a.m. working on details and pouring through product selections. But on October 15, just four months after breaking ground, the family moved into its new home—a full 28 days before the baby arrived.