Home: The Connecticut by Beattie Homes
Designer: Ron Davis

Ron Davis, Custom Design and Production Manager for Beattie Homes has been involved in all facets of residential construction over the past 25 years from estimating and construction through design. Ron joined Beattie homes just over eight months ago, and has been flexing his creative muscles ever since.

“I accepted this position with Beattie Homes largely because of the company’s reputation as a highly respected home builder as well as the company’s desire to further develop their high-end custom product in exclusive areas such as Wentworth Estates and Bearspaw Estates.  Beattie Homes was looking for someone who could focus their efforts primarily on the development of custom product ranging from $800,000 to $1.5 million dollars through the collaboration of ideas and concepts offered by a team of designers, marketing people, area managers and most importantly, Bill Beattie.”

Beattie’s fabulous new 3172 square foot Estate Home, the “Connecticut” will be located in Wentworth, just a few blocks south of the Canada Olympic Park tower. Ron says Beattie wanted to comply with the developer’s wishes to not have a two-storey home sited on a corner lot.  Additionally, the lot was flat meaning that unlike many estate style bungalow homes, the Connecticut wouldn’t be able to incorporate a walk-out basement. This led to the search for a design that would make a compromise between a bungalow and a two-storey home while optimizing a flat lot condition. Consequently, Ron says that the floor plan for the Connecticut evolved from a traditional bungalow to a bungalow with some unique additional living spaces. He says that the design and application process for the Connecticut ran from about January this year until late May and that they have just started construction on it. All in all, that means that from concept and preliminary drawings to completion of design, it took just about six months to bring this beautiful home to the building stage.

The developer’s vision for the Wentworth community incorporated the steep-roof concept, including prominent gables and extra attention to exterior detailing. As a result, in order for the Connecticut to fit in with the architectural style of the neighborhood, it too had to be designed with this in mind. Ron explains that this is partially the reason for not going with the popular idea of building above the garage as the width of the garage effectually minimizes the available space for development. “What we wanted in a finished product was a home that had the characteristics of a bungalow incorporating some space upstairs,” says Ron.   We felt it was important for the upper level development to be very subtle as viewed from the home’s exterior yet dramatic from the interior.  What they ended up with was an upper-level floor situated over the main part of the home, which incorporates a beautiful library with a fabulous spiral staircase as well as a third bedroom with dedicated bath. This elegant feature offers a continuous railing from the library right down to the developed basement, giving a unique view of the games room below.  

 As well as creating an upper level that added valuable space to the plan, Ron decided that extra attention should be given to the lower level development.