Awards continue to pour in for Averton Homes
It has been a crazy 18 months for Averton Homes and its 18 employees, capped this month with its first-ever national housing award.
Last March, Averton won its first-ever Edmonton area builder award. In September, it won provincial awards including the Pinnacle award for multi-family builders. And now, it has been named a top housing industry winner nationally, receiving the 2019 Design of Excellence award from the Canadian Home Builders’ Association.
“We’re a tight, small group that works really hard,” says Averton president Paul Lanni. “When you get something like this, it just confirms that by creating something distinctive, you are doing it for the right reasons and in the right ways.”
Edmonton builders won the two top awards at CHBA’s May conference in Niagara Falls.
Averton’s trophy came from cumulative results from three finalist entries in two detached homes categories. It won in the Attached Home, Low-Rise (1,500 square feet and over category) and had two finalists in the 1,500 square feet and under Attached Home category. The company’s winning entry is for its Rouge model in Pivot, its townhome project in Rutherford.
Edmonton’s Vicky’s Homes earned the national 2019 Marketing Excellence Award for its success in numerous marketing categories, including a win in the Direct Promotion-print category. Vicky’s also won Builder of the Year small volume at the Canadian Home Builders’ Association-Edmonton Region (CHBA-ER) Awards of Excellence in Housing this past March.
Averton’s awards came in the third-generation family company’s first-ever submissions to any competition. It has been building in the Edmonton area for 15 years and is currently in seven communities. The parent company also builds in Ontario.
Lanni says the company, which for the fourth year is builder of the Full House Lottery home, supporting the Royal Alexandra and University Hospital Foundations, has just learned it is also a finalist for an international builders award — again for Pivot — from the California Building Industry Association.
“It has just been crazy. With everything that has been happening in this economy, you have to sit back and enjoy it,” says Lanni.
And while Averton builds everything from estate homes to single-family product, to multi-family homes, it does have a particular affinity for its multi-family product.
“We don’t identify multi-family homes as a price point but as a lifestyle that can be as good as that provided in luxury homes.”
While Ontario companies took home the most CHBA awards — 21 of the 40 awarded — Alberta builders took home 10, from among the 700 competition entries.
Calgary companies picked up five national awards from CHBA — four of them in the renovation category.
Kay2Contracting won in the basement renovation category (it was named Renovator of the Year at the Building Industry Land Development Calgary region awards this April and is opening an Edmonton office this year), Dependable Renovations in the kitchen ($70,000 to $100,000) category; Alloy Homes Inc. in the outdoor living category; and West Ridge Fine Homes Ltd. for its St. Andrew whole house renovation ($500,001 to $1 million) category.
The only new home win for a Calgary homebuilder came in the detached homes production category (2,001 to 2,500 square feet) for Ashton Luxury Living Inc.’s the Cambridge. The company also won a national award in last year’s competition.
In the lone win outside of Alberta’s two major centres, Lethbridge’s Triple M Housing won the Modular Innovation award for the Homestead model.
British Columbia companies took home 11 awards, including the 2019 Community Development award for Paradise Estates in West Kelowna.