When my four boys were young, Sunday night at the Dixon household was always a mixture of tranquility and controlled mayhem. We’d have a family dinner followed by getting the boys ready for school the next day. Household activity wound down by 8:30 p.m. Once the kids were in bed, it was Mom and Dad’s relaxation time, right before the busy workweek that started the next morning.
During one of these Sunday dinners, my wife mentioned to me that she had seen an ad for a television special featuring a custom show home built in suburban Philadelphia and sponsored by a well known national home magazine. This house had been designed by an architect and had virtually every modern amenity, color, detail, and finish desired by home buyers. The show would be airing at 9:00 p.m. I must have had a look of only slight interest; I was already living the home building business 24/7, and Monday morning would come soon enough. “Well, you might want to watch this show because the promotion said this home could be built for $52 a square foot.” That caught my attention.
At this time, during the mid-to-late-80s, the houses I was building included both specs and custom pre-solds. My production “cash costs” on those homes, which differed in size, lot topography, and client selections, ranged from $80 to $125 per square foot. But, not to worry. I was building real custom homes. During and after dinner, I kept turning over the cost reference in my head. … Fifty-two dollars a foot? … Of course they have to have some sort of hype for this TV program. I said to my wife with some skepticism: “This ‘show home’ probably was some mass production tract house with a couple of accent tiles and a dual sink vanity in the master bath. I couldn’t build a doghouse for $52 a foot!”
The kids were in bed, 9:00 arrived and my wife and I both sat down to watch the program. Ten minutes into the show I was so excited I could barely stay in my seat. The home was gorgeous. Traditional architectural design with lap siding, shutters, steep rooflines, divided-light windows, and fantastic curb appeal. The home was 2,800 square feet with a separate two-car garage connected to the house by an enclosed greenhouse hallway lined with full-height windows. This house had every bell and whistle, and then some: vaulted ceilings, tons of fancy traditional woodwork, stone flooring, brick, skylights, lots of cabinetry, granite countertops (one amenity that was crazy expensive, in my book, at the time), several masonry fireplaces, and in-floor heat.
After the program I was so excited that I just wasn’t ready for bed. I had to find a store open late where I could buy the magazine that featured the home. I stayed up late reading and re-reading the article and reviewing the photos of the interior and exterior details of the house. I thought finding this house was an incredible stroke of luck. I had been searching for ways to streamline my costs and here it was. The show home must be an example of extreme construction efficiency.
