[BuckeyeMom]

I appreciate the responses from earlier today regarding my first posting about which airport to use to get to the Villages - Orlando or Tampa. We are coming down at the end of next month to choose a lot for a designer home. Are there any suggestions as to a particular new village for that home? In addition, to those of you who have built designer homes, what models have you chosen and why? Thanks for any suggestions you might have. Can't wait for our May trip!

[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeMom

I appreciate the responses from earlier today regarding my first posting about which airport to use to get to the Villages - Orlando or Tampa. We are coming down at the end of next month to choose a lot for a designer home. Are there any suggestions as to a particular new village for that home? In addition, to those of you who have built designer homes, what models have you chosen and why? Thanks for any suggestions you might have. Can't wait for our May trip!

My favorite designers are still the Gardenia and the Lantana. In the Gardenia I would try to enlarge bedroom two and three.

The newest villages are Gilchrist and am I hearing a first in Collier?

[D. O. Cunha]

You can also go to Sanford if you are near Rickenbacker cheap flights

[asianthree]

I like the lilly

[CFrance]

We are in a begonia, which is the gardenia with a golf cart garage. you lose one of the two dinette windows, unless your lot is big enough to put the golf cart on the other side.(Is this possible? I don't know, because we bought a spec house.)

Design features I like about the Begonia/Gardenia: The second and third bedrooms (one is a bedroom, one is a den) are on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom, so there's a good separation for when you have guests. Also, I like that the master bedroom cannot be seen from the living room or dining room, and barely from the kitchen.

The area in front of the front door is big enough for two chairs and a small end table. We sit out there A LOT after dinner and watch the world go by. Our dog loves it out there. And we like having the golf cart garage, even though we don't have a golf cart. The extra space is convenient.

We like having a window in the dinette, at the front of the house, to see out to the street and to let some light into the kitchen.

Oh. I love having his-and-hers closets.

Originally Posted by CFrance

We are in a begonia, which is the gardenia with a golf cart garage. you lose one of the two dinette windows, unless your lot is big enough to put the golf cart on the other side.(Is this possible? I don't know, because we bought a spec house.)

Design features I like about the Begonia/Gardenia: The second and third bedrooms (one is a bedroom, one is a den) are on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom, so there's a good separation for when you have guests. Also, I like that the master bedroom cannot be seen from the living room or dining room, and barely from the kitchen.

The area in front of the front door is big enough for two chairs and a small end table. We sit out there A LOT after dinner and watch the world go by. Our dog loves it out there. And we like having the golf cart garage, even though we don't have a golf cart. The extra space is convenient.

We like having a window in the dinette, at the front of the house, to see out to the street and to let some light into the kitchen.

Oh. I love having his-and-hers closets.

We're building an Aspen.We see no need for two eating areas and the lanai is the biggest of the designer homes.

[mjdollard]

A Begonia, for every reason CFrance stated.

[missypie]

Originally Posted by Bosoxfan

We're building an Aspen.We see no need for two eating areas and the lanai is the biggest of the designer homes.

That's why we are also choosing the Aspen. Is it the "right" choice? Don't know, but that's what we chose.

[Scoops]

We chose a stretch Iris. We love the open floorplan, the LARGE laundry room, the master bath and large master closet.

[gmcneill]

We are building our second gardenia.
We really like the Zinnia, Aspen, Lantana, and Iris but we love the Gardenia. Reasons include: split floor plan (master suite other side of home from the guest side; large master suite (2nd largest designer); separate his/her closets; master closets are not in the bathroom suite; roman shower design provides more privacy than roman showers in many other designers; breakfast nook location allows for viewing out of the front of home; golf cart garage is on outside of home; floor plan layout design does not require one to walk through kitchen or dining room or living room to enter other areas of the home; more distance between living area and neighbor's home on the golf cart garage side; and larger/wider lanai than most others.

On our current build we enlarged the footprint by extending the lanai 8' deeper; extending the garage 6' feet; extending the golf cart garage 8'; extending the nook 4'; stretching the front bedroom 3' to add a closet; adding a bay window in front bedroom which lengthened the floor space by 3'; and extending the master bedroom 2' deeper but instead of taking the full 2' for the bedroom, we used 1' for the bedroom and used the other to widen the his/her closets.

If the lot was just a little bit wider we could've and would've added the 2' side stretch along the guest/living room side of the home.

[graciegirl]

Originally Posted by gmcneill

We are building our second gardenia.
We really like the Zinnia, Aspen, Lantana, and Iris but we love the Gardenia. Reasons include: split floor plan (master suite other side of home from the guest side; large master suite (2nd largest designer); separate his/her closets; master closets are not in the bathroom suite; roman shower design provides more privacy than roman showers in many other designers; breakfast nook location allows for viewing out of the front of home; golf cart garage is on outside of home; floor plan layout design does not require one to walk through kitchen or dining room or living room to enter other areas of the home; more distance between living area and neighbor's home on the golf cart garage side; and larger/wider lanai than most others.

On our current build we enlarged the footprint larger by extending the lanai 8' deeper; extending the garage 6' feet; extending the golf cart garage 8'; extending the nook 4'; stretching the front bedroom 3' to add a closet; adding a bay window in front bedroom which lengthened the floor space by 3'; and extending the master bedroom 2' deeper but instead of taking the full 2' for the bedroom, we used 1' for the bedroom and used the other to widen the his/her closets.


If the lot was just a little bit wider we could've and would've added the 2' side stretch along the guest/living room side of the home.

We would have done all of those VERY things if we had built a Gardenia again. You thought this all out well, in my very humble opinion. I KNOW you will enjoy all of the things you have added.

[AriaGrandparents2013]

It's appears obvious to me by the discussion in the posts that you have many choices and options to consider and can easily tailor your home to what you desire. Happy choices remain ahead for you. Best wishes and best of luck as you make those decisions.

[jimbo2012]

get the largest lot you can

[Meddick]

Buckeyemom,

Like you, we have our LSV coming up, but ours is in June. I look forward to actually touring the models we have been researching on the 'net. If all goes well, we will be writing a check in June, although actual retirement timing for us is a bit up in the air. Good luck on your visit and keep us posted.

Since I went to university in Ann Arbor, I am not too keen on you username, though.

Don

[gmcneill]

Thank you for your kind words, Gracie. We did our best.

And jimbo also hit it right on the head: one should get the largest lot that one can afford.

We realize that we couldn't (cost-effectively) change the size of the home or increase the lot size once our purchase was finalized; everything else can be added or revised down the road. We thought it best to maximize the home and lot sizes as much as we could responsibly afford at the beginning.