Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Lake Las Vegas offers custom home lots in North Shore
$6.77M Waterfront Show Home to open this fall
Lake Las Vegas has unveiled what’s dubbed its most luxurious community in the development’s third and final phase that introduces the North Shore with contemporary-style homes.
Called the Estates at Reflection Bay, Lake Las Vegas is offering nine 1-acre custom lots ranging from $1.2 million to $1.9 million, and 15 halfacre custom lots ranging from the mid-$300,000s to $650,000.
The numbers haven’t been finalized but there will be about 16 quarter-acre lots. Those prices have not been set.
Lake Las Vegas has already commissioned the construction of what it calls a Waterfront Show Home that’s expected to be completed this fall. It measures more than 8,500 square feet and has been listed for $6.775 million and has already drawn interest from buyers.
The plan for this neighborhood is to sell the 39 remaining custom lots and let the owners design and build their own homes.
An adjacent neighborhood in which luxury builder, Blue Heron, will construct about 40 homes will be unveiled later this year.
The North Shore with its 1,000 acres will be built in multiple phases, and the builders will be announced in the future, according to Cody Winterton, Lake Las Vegas’ senior vice president.
“One this side of the lake, we had the opportunity to envision what we wanted it to look like, so it’s different than anything else at Lake Las Vegas because we have a clean break and new side of the lake that hasn’t been touched,” Winterton said.
The building restrictions at Lake Las Vegas have been rewritten to set the guidelines for the third phase that is different from the South Shore, Winterton said.
“The intent of the home is to set the tone for this whole phase of the community,” Winterton said.
“Lake Las Vegas has historically stuck with a very Mediterranean and Tuscan feel, and this side will be more desert contemporary and modern. I think with the market right now, and a lot of people that are coming to Las Vegas are attracted to this style of architecture. It is timeless.”
The show home was designed by Vern Swaback and Michael Wetzel of Arizona-based Swaback Architects + Planners. Merlin Contracting, which the National Association of Home-
LAKE
builders named the 2017 Custom Home Builder of the Year, is the contractor.
“The guidelines for this are typical for what you would expect for a new development,” Wetzel said. “They are not overly restrictive in keeping the heights down. There is flexibility with that and architecture style, and with the ability to get close to the water and have flexibility and freedom to position the house.”
Swaback trained with Frank Lloyd Wright and was his youngest apprentice when he began his work with the famed architect. He worked with the Wright organization for 21 years, even serving as the foundation’s CEO and president, Wetzel said.
“So much of what Wright taught Vern was put into this home,” said Wetzel, a partner with Swaback. “The soft contemporary feel, the use of color, the clean lines and even the position of the home on the site are all defined by his work. … We wanted to create a Frank Lloyd Wright touch and layering of the roof planes and within those we have clerestory windows that flood the inner space with natural light. And those roof overhangs help prevent a lot of glare.”
Ivan Sher and his group with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Nevada Properties, who represents all of the custom home lot sales at the Estates at Reflection Bay, said a home that’s considered modern is a big box and minimalist with a lot of grey and white and few accents. This home has a warm contemporary feel to it, and people are excited.
“The people who live around here have been waiting for this and are so excited about the change and contemporary look and feel,” Sher said. “They feel that although (Lake Las Vegas) is beautiful and gorgeous and aesthetic, the new trend is definitely contemporary and something a little bit more modern in today’s style.”
Those looking to buy in Lake Las Vegas are different than those who want to purchase in Summerlin, MacDonald Highlands and other luxury communities in Las Vegas, Sher said.
“It is a different client,” Sher said. “The people coming from California that lived on the ocean or by the ocean didn’t know this existed. They come out here, and are quite for a second. They can’t believe it. There’s silence.”
People buying custom lots will have homes that range from more than $1 million up to $10 million.
The two-story showcase home has four bedrooms; four full baths and one half bath; and three-car garage that can be expanded to four bays.
Wetzel said the team wanted the experience to start when you arrive on the property, and it has a lot to do with how you approach the house.
“We integrated some site feature walls that are also stone and tie into our three main stone walls at the entryway,” Wetzel said. “We integrate the landscape so it is part of that arrival. When you come to the front of the homes, you are greeted by this wonderfully tall entryway. The three stone feature walls reach out and pull you in.”
There’s a glass pivot door as you enter the home that allows you to “embrace the lake.” Wetzel said.
“As soon as you come in the door, your arrival is looking over the spa to a negative-edge pool and spa that ties right to the lake so you have that instant connection,” Wetzel said.
The great room has a, 18-foot-wide sliding pocket door that allows the home to nearly triple in size because of the indoor and outdoor elements and ceiling lines that extend to the inside. The great room is on the south side of the home with a large open kitchen and butler pantry, Wetzel said.
There’s a game room and entertainment room with views that tie to the lake, and the master suite is on the north side. The second level has three bedrooms.
The North Shore features a new beach area and nearly 2 acres of open space.
“The key is the indoor-outdoor,” Winterton said. “What is magical about Lake Las Vegas is you don’t even feel you are in the desert. When these glass doors are open on a nice night and you’re throwing a party and you have the lake and the pool in the backyard, that is a setting that’s hard to capture in Las Vegas, and that’s what we’re most excited about. When you look to the South Shore, that style of architecture didn’t embrace the indoor and outdoor and openness. It wasn’t a thing at the time.
Bringing the outside in and when you have a view like this, making that part the house is a big change.”
Lake Las Vegas is owned by hedge fund manager John Paulson through his Paulson & Co. In 2012, he purchased 835 acres for $17.3 million from Highland Capital and Credit Suisse as part of a long-term bet that builders will buy lots and build homes as the economy recovers in the 3,600-acre master-planned development.
The total third phase was entitled for 4,000 homes, but Winterton said it will likely end up between 2,000 and 3,000. Lake Las Vegas has about 1,800 homes and nine communities have opened in the last 18 months, he said. Paulson has invested $50 million in upgrading Lake Las Vegas.
“This is the last big milestone for Paulson to open up this side of the community. We’re more than ready to take off,” Winterton said. “We have a lot of people from California coming to take a look.”
The Westin Lake Las Vegas, which is down the street from the Estates at Reflection Bay, recently finished a $45 million renovation of its property, Winterton said.