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Featured builders design spaces for the way people live
Putting an entry in the Homes of Enchantment Parade is something that Bill Reynolds and New Haven Homes have targeted as a priority for the two decades that the company has been building homes in the Albuquerque metro area.
So it only made sense to mark the milestone as one of the featured builders in the Fall Parade of Homes — sponsored by the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico — joining fellow featured builder Flow Homes and Jesse Deubel.
“I thought it was a good opportunity for us,” Reynolds says. “I see it as a nice vehicle to celebrate 20 years. I’ve been in the parade every year for 20 years. I know what I’m doing every October. I don’t make travel plans. I’m going to be showcasing a home. We’re very grateful that we have the parade. We’re grateful that the Home Builders Association has this event and I thought it was great way to commemorate that experience and 20 years.”
The parade home is one where New Haven is able to highlight what it does best, he says.
“The home is on a fairly challenging but spectacular lot with panoramic views,” Reynolds says of the 3,886-square-foot home. “It’s nestled into the lot and it has a vanishing-edge pool that reflects the sky and invites people to walk out to it.”
Adding twists
The builder has added a number of interesting twists to the four-bedroom,
3½-bath home in the Diamond Tail development in Placitas.
“It’s a good showcase home for us,” Reynolds said. “It’s a great house for us to kick off the celebration of our anniversary. It represents the best of what we do. It’s a unique home. We’ve never done one just like it before. It’s a one of a kind and evidence of the variety and quality of work we can produce.”
One of the touches of which he’s particularly proud is the door-less shower in the master suite.
“We took the veins that run through the granite, edged the granite together and ran it in and out of the shower,” Reynolds said. “It’s got a really unique look.”
The home incorporates a distinct indoor-outdoor feel that creates a feeling of livability for the project.
“We did a good job of lowering the distance between the indoors and outdoors living areas,” he says. “We have an outdoor cantina and a fireplace around the swimming pools. The whole outdoor living winds from one end of the house to the other.”
The home has a natural run from each of its spaces, Reynolds says.
“I think we do a real good job of space planning,” he says. “We’re good at designing homes that flow properly. The routes interact and connect in a way that’s comfortable and feels like home, yet this home has a very sophisticated look to it even though the lifestyle is casual.”
Although it is a natural progression, New Haven works hard to achieve that look, he says.
“We see that as one of our strengths as a design-builder that we can produce that,” Reynolds says. “There’s a lot of interaction that has to occur between the designer, builder and the clients. We work hard at keeping the communication lines open. This home shows that we pay attention to the details. I think people see that. When people come out and walk through our parade home, it’s neat to see how excited they get when they see how it’s put together.”
Unique touches
Naturally, the flow of a home is important to Jesse Deubel’s Flow Homes, as well.
“I built this house for a retired couple and it’s their fourth custom home,” Deubel says. “They built one home in California, wine country; one in Atlanta, Ga.; one in Florida, one of the islands off the Florida coast. What’s unique about this house is they wanted some of the stylistic influences of all of those previous three areas, and also the southwest all incorporated into a single building.”
The 2,790-square-foot home in Paa-Ko Ridge on the east side of the Sandias listed at $562,059 and represented a significant challenge.
“It has a custom exterior, with a color that’s white-gray, but it has Mediterranean-red roofing tiles so it has an interesting exterior look,” Deubel says. “The kitchen has a bright red, quartz countertop island, like something you might see in Miami. In the dining room, it’s terracotta-color with its Southwest-looking tile and New Mexico-style kiva fireplace. And in the hallway to get to the secondary bedrooms, it’s a barrel arch ceiling, with wooden staves, like hoops, from a whiskey barrel. It’s definitely got
some unique things about it.”
And because the couple is using it as a retirement home, Flow tried to accentuate that aspect from one stage of life to the next.
“One of the things that we pay pretty close attention to is the aging-in-place aspect of the design,” Deubel says. “The home is set up for people whose needs are going to change over time. For instance, it’s single story, but it has a very open floor plan and the hallways are really wide. There are no tight spot or areas, so if somebody eventually needs a wheelchair, there are no issues or something that they would have to worry about.”
Although it can be a sensitive topic, in the long run, it’s a good conversation to have, he says.
“One of the things, as a home builder, when I want to help people think about those kind of things so they can make decisions that will be helpful in the long term, but you have to be real tactful how you bring these things up,” he says. “I refer to it as universal design or aging in place. It’s actually a green concept. It doesn’t require a person to have to leave their home and it increases the longevity and the functionality, it increases the length of time the home is functional for the owners.”