COUPLE SCORES WITH DUPLEX
Home’s garage, Auburn Bay lifestyle major selling points for newlyweds
A place to store one of their vehicles during hockey season and lake for fishing in the summer was a winning combination for Kris and Brittany Foucault.
Kris is a former member of the Minnesota Wild who played last year in Vienna, Austria and has signed with a team in Zurich, Switzerland for next season. The leftwinger was raised in Calgary and spends the off-season here. Brittany works in interior design and is headed for a bachelor’s degree in science.
Spending winters abroad made it important for the couple to have a garage at their home in Calgary. Earlier this summer, the newly married couple moved to a Side-by-Side home with a front-attached garage by Brookfield Residential in the southeast community of Auburn Bay.
These duplexes are available from the low $400,000s, including tax. Front yard landscaping is included. At that price, the value stood out, says Kris.
“If we were going to get a singlefamily home, we wouldn’t have had a garage or we would have had to put an extra $30,000 in to build a garage,” Kris says. “So that was a big decision for me. Being able to have that garage. Being able to park in there for periods of time when I am not home.”
Brookfield broke ground last November on a stretch of land earmarked for 85 Side-by- Side homes with a front-attached garage. This concept was first offered by the company’s Edmonton division, says Kelly Halliday, Brookfield’s business development manager for Calgary Homes south.
“Client feedback was so strong in Edmonton that we worked with our communities division to try to bring these into Auburn Bay and that’s how we ended up with this exclusive phase,” Halliday says. The phase also stands out from the curb with charming cottage country designs, she adds.
There are four floor plans for this segment in Auburn Bay, with the 1,751- square- foot Palazzo as the largest. Then there’s the 1,466 square- foot Allegro, the 1,420-square-foot Alma and the Cadenza, which is 1,675 square feet. All floor plans come with an upper-floor laundry room.
The Cadenza can be explored in person, opening as a show home earlier this year. It’s located at 103 Auburn Meadows Place S.E. and open 2 to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon to 5 p.m. on weekends and holidays.
“We have had phenomenal feedback on this plan,” says Halliday. “We developed the basement in our show home to show off one of our walkout lots.” Part of the phase features west-facing walkouts with a scenic pond nearby.
Kris and Brittany went for the Allegro floor plan, which has three bedrooms, a laundry room and bonus room on its standard second floor. Kris says the bonus room is a great place to tuck away and take in a hockey game on TV.
Part of the couple’s decision to move to Auburn Bay was its proximity to the nearby South Health Campus, a new hospital next to mixed-use development of Seton in southeast Calgary. “That’s a big key for resale,” Kris says.
Kris grew up in the established southeast community of Sundance, featuring 13 hectare Sundance Lake. The return to life by a lake was another reason Kris and Brittany turned to Auburn Bay.
It has a 17-hectare freshwater lake, and many outdoor amenities, including five hectares in park space and six playgrounds.
“I do a lot of fishing and I like to be on the water and have somewhere to go on these 33 degree (Celsius) days,” says Kris. “That was a big selling point for me.”
The lake in Auburn Bay is stocked with rainbow trout. “It’s good fishing,” Kris says.