By Emily Williams
This year’s Inspiration Home proves that you don’t need a mansion to live like royalty.
With just more than 3,500 square feet, the Calton Hill home is suitable for empty nesters and other buyers looking for low-maintenance properties.
The first priority for the Inspiration Home and other houses in the neighborhood was to remain low in maintenance and heavy on amenities, said Jason Kessler of KADCO Homes, the builder and developer of the new neighborhood that straddles Mountain Brook and Birmingham in the Crestline area.
Kessler said the Inspiration Home and its neighbors, which his company created with the help of Jim Kelly Custom Homes and Alan Wisdom of Wisdom & Associates, are detached homes that contain top-of-the-line finishes and energy-efficient features. He said each house will incorporate high-efficiency HVAC systems, tank-less water heaters and radiant barrier sheeting underneath the roof to keep the home cool and power bills low. Automated systems that can be run from a smartphone or computer can be added to give even more efficiency.
Outside of being energy conscious, Kessler said the number one request from buyers looking to build is an open floor plan. “They want areas where they can do it all,” he said. “They want to be able to prepare meals, entertain guests and spend time with family all in one livable, functional space.”
Main level living is the mantra for the Inspiration Home’s layout.
“The master on the main level has become very standard,” Kessler said. “In this house, we have a study on the main level as well and each of our detached homes will feature either two bedrooms on the main level or a master bedroom and study.”
When staffers at Birmingham Home and Garden began their search for the 2015 Inspiration Home, editor Cathy Still McGowin said, they didn’t set out to feature a smaller home, but KADCO’s design surprised them.
“It lives large and it fulfills all of the same needs that a 10,000-square-foot house would fill,” McGowin said.
She said it is the smallest house that has ever been featured as the Inspiration Home, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in functionality. She said it is the perfect home for a buyer who wants to downsize but still wants all of the functionality a larger home offers.
“What we loved about it is that you’ve got this beautiful master bedroom and bath,” she said. “They can close off that upstairs area. So, their grandkids can come, their kids can come, company can come, but they don’t have any real reason to go up there.”
The home includes an elevator bank that currently functions as a wine closet, giving the owner the potential to add an elevator in the future, “so it can truly be a forever home,” McGowin said.
When outfitting the house for the tour, McGowin said her team called on Sherri Ellis of Ellis Interiors to act as a liaison between the different designers of each room.
“The house has a distinct personality,” McGowin said. “Even empty it did. You can see the foundation for what someone can come in and do. For instance, that wonderful wood wall in the master. The fireplaces the high ceilings and the coffer ceiling in the dining room.”
She said her team could not have been happier with the results.
“I was surprised by what Katherine Bramlett did with the study,” said Birmingham Home and Garden’s Marketing Manager Anne Lyle Harris. “I loved how she had (a bulletin board) covering an entire wall and how it opened up the space.”
The team agreed the idea that guests should leave with is that buyers can have everything they want in a home with a smaller floor plan. McGowin said the large feeling of the home comes from open floor plans and perfect furniture placement, for example the pathways that Defining Home created in the living room.
“You don’t have to push all of the furniture up to the walls,” McGowin said. “You leave the furniture in the middle of the room and leave the walls for the case goods. Defining Home kind of created a path behind the sofa and the sofa table even though there isn’t a traditional hall. Furniture placement was impressive.”
For guests who see something they like and wish to recreate it in their own home, all of the pieces on display can be purchased.
Whether it’s furniture, lighting or textiles, McGowin said that people who visit the Calton Hill home are going to find new Birmingham resources they didn’t realize were available.
