Castle-themed Homearama aims to dazzle its visitors

By JEANNE MOONEY
The Virginian-Pilot

CHESAPEAKE - Some national economists fret about the likelihood of a recession and whether consumers will tighten purse strings. Local market watchers note a slowdown in home sales and price gains.

Visitors to Homearama 2007 at Edinburgh Meadows in Chesapeake may wonder: What market woes? Who's worried?

The Tidewater Builders Association and site developer Precon Development Corp. Inc. have offered a counterpoint for buyers and created a bonny mead that showcases luxury on a grand scale.

Seventeen homes that have been themed as castles and built for slightly less than $1 million to more than $2 million open today through Oct. 14 for tours. Eleven of those showpieces have buyers, Homearama organizers said. All are apt to inspire envy.

One is a Homearama record-setter. It has 9,500 square feet of living space - 14,400 square feet if you're counting garages, patios and porches - six bedrooms, seven-and-a-half baths, 12 flat-panel televisions and a 12-foot-diagonal screen, said Sam Cohen of Joey Corp., builder of home No. 13. It also sports an indoor kitchen, an outdoor kitchen, a kitchen near the home theater and a wet bar in the master suite.

In the back of the home, water rains from beneath a third-floor balcony into a swimming pool 20 feet below. It shoots in arcs and gushes in fountains that are colored by fiber-optic lighting. From one vantage, the surface of the pool appears to end seamlessly. In fact, water falls into a second pool below.

Another home, No. 1 by R.L. Blount Custom Homes, Chesapeake, boasts an 84-inch outdoor television that's weatherproof, set in the wall of a brick cabana and viewable while afloat in the pool. On the second floor, a home cinema with an estimated $95,000 in equipment provides a sound quality that rivals or even tops commercial theaters. And in another room, two 42-inch televisions are dedicated for gaming so players get a full view of their own screen rather than half, or less, of a shared TV.

There's more. There are 12 pools, three ponds and several fountains in the community.

Hardiplank is out and brick, stone and faux stone are in. Wine closets, waterfalls, elevators, interior balconies and glazed kitchen cabinets also are chic.

Televisions in the showers are yesteryear. This year's baths deliver steam and spray from multiple spigots, dish-size showerheads and hand-held wands. Tile floors here are often heated, while the ceilings may be vaulted or rise two stories.

Lowell and Vera Morse hired Charlie Anderson to build house No. 9 for them. They chose a tile with a basket weave pattern for the side of a tub.

"Come on, who needs that?" Lowell Morse asked in a light moment when his wife was in another room. He quickly caught himself. "We needed it."

Morse pointed out another well-appointed bath in his Homearama home. Curtains hung artfully by the shower. "Look how beautiful it is," he said of his wife's choices.

Who will use that bath?

"Nobody as long as I'm around," Morse answered instantly. "I'm putting up a sign here: No showers."

The Morses will move from Church Point in Virginia Beach to their new home when the show is over. It is the sixth home they've built for themselves. Lowell Morse, a consultant and developer, regards the home as an amenity-packed deal.

"We like to build houses for ourselves," Vera Morse said. "We just wanted to do it one more time."

"How many times have I heard that?" her husband retorted.

Mario Sofroniou of Chesapeake helped build the pool at his Homearama home this year as well as five others. When the show ends, the pool company owner and his wife, Despo, and their three sons will move into home No. 13. But first, 100,000 people are expected to attend the show and troop through.

"I'm used to it," Sofroniou said of the anticipated foot traffic. He and his family live in a home built for Homearama 1993 in Chesapeake's River Walk community. He dug the pool there, too.

"I decided for me it's time to move," Sofroniou said. He sold the lot that he had bought in another part of Edinburgh, he said, and joined forces with Cohen.

They didn't set out to build the show's biggest whopper ever.

"I wasn't planning it being this big because it's too much maintenance," Sofroniou said. "But that's the way it ended up." They started with plans for a 6,000-square-foot home and added a third floor, a home theater, an exercise room and a small kitchen. The two wanted to display their talents. Suppliers wanted to push new products. The home's size grew.

"This always is a show," Cohen said.

And the show must go on.