NOW SHOWING: STELLAR VIEWS OVER VERNON
Homes arranged ‘theatre-style’ in Turtle Mountain development
OK, so it’s not technically a mountain, but the views from Turtle Mountain are amazing just the same.
How does a front and centre view looking down on three lakes, mountains, and downtown Vernon, B.C., from your living or dining room, massive deck or library grab you?
Well, it grabbed John and Kelly Price and their two children from Sherwood Park, near Edmonton, and never let go. They bought an Everton Ridge Homes walkout bungalow in 2016.
The Price family is part of a growing catalogue of Alberta home buyers who have or are planning to set up new digs in this Wesbild Holdings Ltd. development that steps up Turtle Mountain’s basalt cliffs.
“The views are incredible. Much of Turtle Mountain has been developed theatre-style where homes are built on only one side of the street and arranged so they look out over the houses on the streets below.
“This coupled with the fact shopping, restaurants and other amenities in Vernon are truly only minutes away made buying at Turtle Mountain a very attractive option for us,” says John Price.
Covering about 80 hectares (200 acres) and with a planned buildout of about 300 homes, the masterplanned Turtle Mountain development is the “closest new residential neighbourhood” to downtown Vernon, says Jason Kelder, Wesbild director of development in the Okanagan.
Wesbild did build homes at Turtle Mountain, but stepped back, leaving Everton Ridge as the sole builder. To date, of the 100 homes built, Everton’s name is on 35. Currently, of the five homes under construction, two have been sold and three are available for quick possession. In addition to selling to Albertans, Everton Ridge buyers have come from B.C.’s Lower Mainland, Vernon, and Ontario.
And as interest in Turtle Mountain remains steady, Everton Ridge is moving ahead with construction this spring of 22 exclusive culde-sac home sites, says company president Jacob Kuiken.
“Our new phase will have twostorey walkouts, custom walkout bungalows, and a rancher with prices running from $579,900 plus GST to more than $900,000, depending on lot, design and features. Home sizes range from about 2,100 to 4,500 (main floor and basement finished),” he says.
A new show home, located on Turtle Pond Place, will open at the beginning of June.
For the Price family, the decision to buy at Turtle Mountain was somewhat “spur of the moment,” says Price.
They were vacationing at a friend’s home and on the last day someone suggested they move to the area. So, on that last day the Prices found themselves driving through different neighbourhoods scoping things out.
But it wasn’t until months later back in Sherwood Park and after looking up more than a few homes and locations in and around Vernon, that they decided to revisit Vernon for another look at housing. Nothing really grabbed them. “Our friends suggested we take a look at Turtle Mountain, so we visited the Everton Ridge Homes show home and really liked what we saw,” Price says.
In addition to jaw-dropping views, they were able to develop a custom design for a 2,800-squarefoot-plus walkout bungalow with four bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths, threecar garage, bar, exercise area, and a golf simulator room.
“The cost was comparable to some of the more expensive listings we’d looked at, but the custom design more fully met our particular wants and needs,” Price says.
Though they purchased the home in 2016 as a vacation property with the plan eventually to be a full-time retirement home, life got in the way.
The Smiths’ son enrolled in the commercial aviation program at Okanagan College and Southern Interior Flight School, so John and his son moved into the Turtle Mountain home. Meantime, their daughter was enrolled in a landscape architecture program at NAIT in Edmonton, so Kelly Price stayed at the Sherwood Park home.
“When she has completed her schooling, we plan to sell the Sherwood Park home, then they will join us here at Turtle Mountain, something we are really looking forward to as we will be married 25 years this August,” he says.
For the time being, though, FaceTime calls, lots of texting, and flights back and forth once a month will have to suffice.
“We are extremely happy with what we chose to buy and where we chose to buy it, and look forward to many beautiful summers, mild winters, plenty of fresh fruit, and plenty of golfing,” says John.