Rising to the Challenge

The challenge was a daunting one-design, build and furnish three distinctly different homes that spoke to the lifestyle needs of three disparate buyer categories, and have the homes ready for a high-profile debut during the 61st annual International Builders' Show.

The massive trade show/convention, sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders, drew a record crowd of 25,000 industry professionals to Orlando during January. The home-building project, dubbed the New Urban Challenge, was spearheaded by two highly regarded trade magazines, Builder and Home.

"It was a pretty stiff order, even without the three hurricanes that came along," says David Weekley, chairman of Houston-based David Weekley Homes.

Weekley's company was selected by the sponsoring magazines to build the trio of homes on contiguous lots in Orlando's Baldwin Park. Making the project more interesting, each home was designed by a different architect and aimed at a different demographic.

"The challenge was to redefine the average new home in America," says Boyce Thompson, editorial director of Builder. "The average new home is a 2,300-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath home. Each architect developed a unique response, which reflects the diversity of today's buyers."

Consumers clearly liked what they saw. After being open to the public for a week following the builders' show, the homes sold quickly. The average price: $800,000.

New Urbanism and an emerging trend called customer-focused building were at the heart of the New Urban Challenge.

New Urbanism generally refers to master-planned communities that offer close-set, neotraditional homes with front porches-not garages-as architectural focal points. Such communities, sometimes called Traditional Neighborhood Developments, usually have walkable amenities such as town centers with shopping, dining and office space as well as nearby schools, churches and other civic buildings.

More than 3,000 mixed-use developments employing the principals of New Urbanism are under way nationwide, according to the Congress for New Urbanism, a San Francisco-based organization that acts as a resource for developers and consumers. In the past decade, however, Central Florida has emerged as a trendsetter, with at least a dozen such projects-including Baldwin Park-now under way.

But Baldwin Park was deemed best suited for the New Urban Challenge because it is, in fact, located in an urban area. The site, formerly the Orlando Naval Training Center, is near downtown Orlando and is surrounded by neighborhoods that have been built out for decades. Because of a dearth of close-in land, many comparable projects in Central Florida are located on vast tracts in outlying areas.

Customer-focused building is a response to research indicating that buyers are beginning to fragment into specific groups, each demanding that homes be designed with their lifestyle needs in mind. This increasing choosiness, combined with the fact that homes in high-density developments may contain less square footage than homes in older subdivisions, has created a challenge for builders.

"This new trend is complicated for builders looking to provide the right product that attracts a variety of buyers," says Ken McDonald, Orlando division president for David Weekley Homes. "The project shows that while homes in urban areas don't typically have the space of their suburban counterparts, the floorplan, layout, advanced home technology and design options can all come together and make a home with fewer square feet seem anything but small."

The three showcase homes that eventually sprouted in Baldwin Park were designed using buyer profiles developed by Yankelovich Partners, a Chapel Hill, N.C.-based consulting company. The results:

o The Shingled Cottage for Active Adults. Designed to suit on-the-go retirees, the cottage features a master suite at ground level, a private courtyard and plenty of storage.

o The Villa for the Modern Couple. This open-interior, two-story home was designed with newly married couples in mind, featuring state-of-the-art amenities and overflow bedrooms for visitors. An outdoor dining area overlooks a garden and pool while a suite above the detached garage serves as a game/media room.

o The Classic Family Residence. Perfect for a growing family, this home features an oversized front porch as well as a large kitchen/great room combination, a luxurious master suite and a pair of children's suites, all upstairs and out of sight from guests.

The three architects involved with the project (Bill Kreager of Mithun in Seattle, Donald Rattner of Studio for Civil Architecture in New York City, and Geoffrey Mouen of Geoffrey Mouen Architects in Celebration) used Yankelovich's research and held several focus groups with potential buyers to help create their designs.

According to Weekley, whose company is the second-largest privately held homebuilder in the United States, the Baldwin Park designs won't necessarily be repeated in other Weekley projects-but they will provide plenty of inspiration.

"I think they've shown us how we can stretch our concept of what an urban home is all about," says Weekley. "In Orlando, we brainstormed some ideas that are going to transform the housing market for years to come."

Here's a good measure of how new home prices have skyrocketed in the United States over the past 20-odd years: When the National Association of Home Builders launched its first "New American Home" project in Houston back in 1983, the home sold for $80,000.

This year, when NAHB unveiled its most recent New American Home, on so-called "Millionaires Row" in Orlando's Baldwin Park, it sold for about $2.5 million. But not before thousands of builders from across the country got a peak during NAHB's International Builders Show, held in January.

At each of its annual gatherings, the association draws on the talents of contractors, designers and suppliers from around the country to produce a showcase home demonstrating the use of state-of-the-art fixtures, materials and construction techniques.

Designed by the Orlando firm of Bloodgood Sharp Buster Architects and Planners and built by Gering and Morgan Construction, this stunning Mediterranean-style home has 5,950 square feet of living area and is built around a spectacular "courtyard oasis" and swimming pool.

"The vision behind the home was to build a courtyard home that felt as if it had grown organically as the family grew," says Kim Gering of Gering and Morgan. "From the front it looks fairly unpretentious, but once inside it just gets larger and larger. Plus everything new you can think of on the market-it's in there."