In 1989 Tom and Jacquie Hignite were living in an apartment near Northridge Mall in Milwaukee, dreaming about building their dream home. Every weekend, they attended all of the open houses in town awaiting the day they could afford to buy their first home.

Before Tom and Jacquie ever built their first home, they were home shoppers. It seemed that no matter how many homes they visited on their search for their ideal home, something was always missing. Either a side entry garage would not fit, or there was no way to add a front porch, or getting storage items from garage to basement was awkward, or you had no possibility of a clothes chute. It seemed that to find the perfect house would require a miracle.

In 1990, using Tom's design background, a long list of desires was drawn up and Tom and Jacquie created their own miracle home. This home was different from anything they ever saw because it was "user friendly." There were logical traffic paths, extra wide stairs, and possible furniture placements planned. Tom called these homes ergonomically designed. "Who in their right mind would ever want to carry their dirty clothes down a flight of stairs? That is why they invented clothes chutes," Tom says. To this day, every Miracle and Crowne Series 2-story home has a clothes chute.

Tom explains "accessing a basement to me, is very important. I want my basement stairs on a direct travel path from the garage for carrying things from my car for storage projects. Since the basement is also used for family and entertaining, we also insist that all Miracle basement stairs are totally open and placed directly by a main living area. I don't know of another designer's stair that works from both garage and living - it's our exclusive." Similar thoughts have gone into everything from separating bedrooms by closets for privacy, to having dining rooms that seat no less than 12, to having specific furniture layouts to allow everyone in the family room to see both television and fireplace in the same eyeshot.

Tom and Jacquie are always asked to explain the name "Miracle Homes". Tom replies, "If we were a home shopper and found a home like we offer, we like to think it would be a bit miraculous. Beyond the homes, we attempt to have a Christian based philosophy in the way we build homes and we wanted our name to in some way to reflect that principal." All models begin as custom designs and are never copied from existing home plans. Miracle Homes builds homes from Kenosha to Door County.