Showcase home: Pardee builds `Ultimate Family Home'

With design input from children ages 8 to 16, Pardee Homes is building "The Ultimate Family Home" for the 2004 International Builders Show in Las Vegas. The 5,300-square-foot-home is under construction at Pardee's Nevada Trails community in the southwestern valley.

The Ultimate Family Home team includes Pardee, Builder Magazine, Home Magazine and Bassenian Lagoni Architects. Together they are building the showcase home to demonstrate how today's families want to live.

"Our challenge was to utilize every square foot of an attainable dream home to provide for family interaction, as well as individual pursuits," said Joyce Mason, vice president of marketing for Pardee Homes. "We started out by conducting focus group research with parents and kids, who are a more significant buying influence today than ever before."

Research done in Las Vegas showed that children had visions of the ideal home that ranged from the practical, such as laundry chutes and intercoms; and the fun, such as secret hideaways and treehouses; to the futuristic, like underwater houses and teleports.

"It is interesting that the kids also wanted spaces where the entire family could gather, showing that time with family is highly valued," Mason said, noting that many of their ideas, excluding the futuristic visions, were incorporated into the design of the Ultimate Family Home.

"We received more ideas from kids than we did from their parents because kids think out of the box," said Jeff Lake, principal of Bassenian Lagoni.

The home will be on the cutting edge of energy-efficient and sustainable construction, built to save about $5,000 a year in utility costs, according to Mason.

"This will be the kickoff home for Pardee's Zero Energy Home program," she said.

Pardee will incorporate innovative energy-saving technologies used in the showcase home into its new neighborhoods beginning early next year.

Working with ConSol Energy Consultants, the Ultimate Family Home team designed a home that they expect will produce more energy than it uses, according to Mason. It will do that by producing electricity from photovoltaic cells; using energy-saving appliances; and reducing energy loss with airtight ductwork, low-e windows and deep eaves.

Other energy-saving highlights include tankless water heaters that deliver hot water on demand and that will not heat water until it is needed, fluorescent and LED lighting, and high emissivity or "cool" roof tiles that combine with radiant barrier for added energy savings and comfort. The home could produce excess electricity that could potentially be sold back to the power company, Mason said.

The four-bedroom, 5 1/2-bath Spanish contemporary home will be completed in mid-October. The 32-week construction schedule was set to accommodate photography and publication of both Builder and Home magazines in advance of the International Builders Show, which runs from Jan. 19-22, 2004, according to Ray Landry, Pardee assistant vice president of sales.

"This has been a massive undertaking involving 35 national sponsors, including Best Buy, Kohler, Pella Windows, General Electric, Weyerhaeuser Truss Joist and Weyerhaeuser Lumber, Boral Bricks, U.S. Tile, Georgia Pacific, Sherwin-Williams, Summit Door, Timberlake Cabinets and La Habra Stucco," Landry said. "Because this home points in new directions for the home building industry, hundreds of builders will study it, in print and in person.

"The home will not only be a showcase for how families want to live, it will also show the world how real families live in Las Vegas," he said. "We have a wonderful opportunity to shine the light on the real attraction that Las Vegas offers -- its people."

Nevada Trails is one of Pardee's newest family-oriented communities, and will feature more than 20 acres of walking paths and parks.

Pardee Homes has been recognized for quality construction, customer service and leadership in environmentally responsible development. The company was the first national builder to commit to building only Energy Star homes, which exceed national energy-efficiency standards by at least 30 percent.

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