ENGAGING HOMES
Couples take two big steps at once while finding a new place to live
A new home is one of the most emotional commitments a person can make. It’s not only a significant purchase and the future backdrop to meaningful memories, but an important next step in life.
For some couples, such as Badi Moghtader and Catherene Joseph, that next step goes hand-in-hand with another.
The couple and a friend who works as a real estate agent were looking at a show home by Homes by Avi in Harmony. They had been to the show home before, and Joseph previously remarked how impressed she was with the Springbank community.
While at the show home, the couple joined their friend who was sitting in the second floor bonus room. Love Actually, Joseph’s favourite movie, was playing on the television.
The film gets to its most wellknown scene where a character played by actor Andrew Lincoln is standing in the doorway of his love interest’s home holding up a written-out romantic message on several large flash cards.
But rather than the actual scene, the film is edited to show Moghtader. He goes through the flash cards in a similar manner, each with a message written about their relationship. The last one read, “Will you marry me?”
“It was quite romantic,” says Joseph. “It was really sweet.”
Moghtader then went down on one knee and pulled out the ring.
“I didn’t expect it,” she adds. “It was pretty overwhelming, but really great.”
After the video, they walked around the house, and on the main level, Moghtader had his next surprise.
“She said, 'Oh my god, these homes are so gorgeous, maybe one day we can get one of these estate homes,” says Moghtader. "I said, 'What if that day was today?'
“From across the field, you could see our lot, so that’s when I pointed it out to her and said, 'That’s our lot,' and that I had put down a down payment.”
This will be the couple’s first home together. They bought Homes by Avi’s Wakefield model and are slated to take possession this August, the same month that they’ll be married.
“It’s a big month, a big year,” says Joseph.
Harmony is a master-planned lake community by Bordeaux Developments and Qualico Communities. It one of the contenders for the community development award at the Canadian Home Builders’ Association 2018 National Awards for Housing Excellence that will announced on March 23 in Victoria, B.C. It also won by New Community of the Year and Community of the YearCalgary Region at the Calgary Region SAM (Sales and Marketing) Awards handed out in early 2017.
“I like their vision for the community,” says Joseph. "It’s almost like a small town all on its own.
“We’re both very outdoorsy and love hiking. We’re always going to Banff,” she adds. “So that proximity of being so close to the mountains ... and our lot backs on to ranch land and you have a great view of the mountains from that whole back side of the house.”
Being handed the keys to a new home is another special day that some couples have made even more memorable.
The front step to Kyle Prigotzke and Cayla Medhurst’s new home in the southeast Calgary community of Legacy now has a permanent spot in the couple’s history books. That’s where Prigotzke popped the question.
“That’s so much more meaningful spot for us now,” says Prigotzke, of their front step.
To mark the exciting moment of taking possession, the couple was told the builder would photograph the couple posing with the keys in front of their new home. To Prigotzke, it was the ideal opportunity to capture another important milestone.
When asked if she saw it coming, Medhurst said, “Absolutely not.”
“It was a complete surprise to me,” she says, adding that with the photo taken of the proposal, “I think the expression shows that.”
Their wedding will be in Jamaica in 2019.
The opportunity to propose on possession day made sense, says Prigotzke.
“There was nothing else that would be as significant as purchasing a house together,” he adds.
Medhurst agrees, adding, “We lived together previously, but owning the house together, it’s nice to take that step as an engaged couple and a new chapter in our lives.”
Fedele Arcuri, who proposed to Megan Snow, made their big moment move-in day. The couple bought a duplex, Brookfield Residential’s Wicklow model, in the new north Calgary community of Livingston.
“I’ve been trying to plan the day for about seven months,” says Arcuri, who adds he was helped by Virtuo, a home buying and moving concierge service, that Brookfield has partnered with on a pilot project.
Snow left to get lunch for the people who were helping the couple out.
At which point, “I got her sister and her co-worker, they’re interior designers, to design one of the rooms upstairs as her Christmas present, because it was Dec. 15. They designed one of the rooms as Megan’s yoga retreat, because she’s always wanted her own space and never had it.”
Arcuri strapped a golden bow on the door. While the yoga room was a hit with Snow, it was also a bit of misdirection. After one surprise, she wouldn’t be anticipating a second.
“The last thing in the world she’s thinking of is getting proposed to,” says Arcuri.
Everyone in the house was in on the plan, including Arcuri’s mom, who brought in another box that was supposedly forgotten with the move-in. In the box was a letter and the ring. Megan was asked to read the letter out loud that Arcuri says was “intended to be a distraction.”
When she was done reading it, the ring was ready and he proposed.
“Our whole family was around us. It was a really good moment,” says Arcuri.
I got her sister and her co-worker, they’re interior designers, to design one of the rooms upstairs as her Christmas present.