Design carrots added to fortified homes' defensive stick

By JUDY STARK

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 21, 2000

Camp cots, bottled water, and battery-powered lights outfit the “safe room” in the Mark Maconi model. To eliminate that closed-in feeling, a mural on the wall offers a golf course view.

The fortified homes in the Contractors & Builders Association's Gallery of New Homes offer refreshing new elements inside and out.

In the Mark Maconi home at Wentworth, the media room is just off the kitchen/great room, not upstairs over the garage in what is usually called the "bonus room." Homebuyers balk at spending thousands of dollars on expensive media equipment they seldom use because it's in a remote part of the house, hence the effort to move it to a more central location.

Step into the house from the garage entrance (the way so many of us enter our homes) and note these features that make it easy to live in:

• A stop-and-drop space just inside the back door for backpacks, shoes, briefcases.
• Across the hall, a big laundry room.
• Straight ahead, a double computer desk with lots of storage. The computer doesn't clutter up the family room, yet whoever's using it isn't isolated in a bedroom.
• A long wall of storage shelves between the kids' bedrooms and the kitchen.

Selling storm safety Builders construct models of hurricane-resistant "fortified homes," but will buyers find them attractive and affordable?

Maconi has offered lots of upgrades and extras in this house. A few to note: the Fisher & Paykel "dish drawer," a dishwasher that occupies two drawers in the kitchen, and in the den check out that enormous golf bag in the corner. It disguises an armoire.

In the big master bath, note the island, a useful place for storage, makeup, odds and ends. It's one island you won't want to be voted off.

The “safe room” in the Lehigh Group model, where residents could wait out a hurricane or tornado, is strengthened with this “sandwich” of materials, from the outside in: drywall, a sheet of 5/8-inch plywood, a 2 by 4 framing member with solid concrete block between studs, two additional sheets of plywood on the inside wall and another sheet of drywall.

The Lehigh Homes model at Cypress Hollow is a courtyard plan. The "front door" opens into a courtyard with a separate casita, shown here as a mother-in-law suite. It could also easily be a free-standing home office, a use for which builder Tom Heironimus predicts there will be good demand.

The courtyard plan solves a land-use problem. This subdivision lies right along busy McMullen-Booth Road, so how to lay out the homes to minimize the noise and dirt of the highway and provide privacy from the neighbors? Placing the house near the front of the lot with an exposed back yard open to the road or the neighbors wasn't the answer. Turning the house around so it faces an interior street offered a solution. The courtyard creates an interior private space. A wall between this house and the neighbor's provides privacy.

Granite countertops and a wine bar in the butler’s pantry are among the design features at the Maconi model. “I don’t feel we gave up anything aesthetically” to meet fortification requirements, the builder said. But the question is whether buyers will spend their dollars on safety or style.

Heironimus says he's seen greater acceptance by buyers of smaller lots, partly as an acknowledgment of our limited water situation, he said. Another part: "They don't want the lawn," he said. Caring for a big lawn isn't high on the priority list of busy homeowners.

Jeff Hoyt's fortified house, in his new subdivision of Bayside Oaks, appeals to empty nesters as well as first-time buyers. He said he's also hearing from employees of nearby Tech Data and Digital Lightwave, who would love to live within walking distance of their jobs.

He created a short wall between a secondary bedroom and the living room to allow natural light from the bedroom windows to enter the living area. That wall could be extended to the ceiling, he said, but the short wall works well with so many buyers using that secondary bedroom as a home office.

Tour of homes

WHAT: Gallery of New Homes, showcase of 46 model homes in Pinellas and West Pasco, sponsored by the Contractors & Builders Association of Pinellas.

WHERE: At sites around the two counties marked by blue and white signs. A magazine with maps and descriptions of the homes will appear Sunday in the St. Petersburg Times distributed in most of Pinellas and Pasco counties and will be available at the models.

WHEN: Through Nov. 4. Models are open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sundays.

WHAT ELSE: From noon to 5 p.m. Nov. 5, one home in the process of remodeling will be open for tours at at 3230 Sunset Drive, St. Petersburg. Remodeling contractor Bob Kelzer of R-Systems is using steel framing to remodel a typical ranch into a contemporary home with cupola, glass gable end, media room, home office and storage center.

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