There are two things  I want to share in this Holiday related blog entry.

     We have just had our first big snowy weekend. Even though we only got an inch or two of the white stuff, the first snow always seems to feel like a blizzard. Maybe that is why our model home attendance was so far below the norm(even for Christmas time).  I do hope you will consider coming out to see the cool, yet modest Christmas decorations we have done in our 3 model homes in Richfield.  When you see our Hybrid  Wonderhome, don’t forget to look into our front(garage) window. I have set up a large display which evokes the feel of a grand old department store window. The motif  is Disney (gee, what a surprise) and specifically, Mickey Mouse motorized spinning on top of a small piano. Then there are stacks of colorful wrapped git boxes with Mickey’s dog Pluto on top of the stack looking down at Mickey. Donald Duck’s nephews are wrapping gifts and are a bit tangled in the ribbons. Lastly Pongo(the father Dalmatian from 101 Dalmatians) is eagerly standing up with his paws on the top of a freshly opened gift box. A few of Pongo’s pups are playing near-by. A Cheshire Cat stuffed toy is protruding from this open box as are other open boxes featuring Minnie Mouse and Dumbo. 

     If you visit this home at any hour, night or day, we are playing Christmas music on the exterior speakers and the big front porch has the fireplace burning(gas) as the indoor/outdoor television plays Christmas television specials such as The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. In the front yard, there was a 10 foot diameter round concrete fountain. My creative juices saw a lot of possibilities for decorating this area. I thought of trying a large snow-man about 20 feet tall, all made of wire and lights. I thought of a tall stack of foil covered presents, maybe with our mascot Miracle Mouse sitting atop the upper box. Then I got an idea which just seemed so suitable to this big round concrete structure. With a little help from our warranty person Mark and our lumber supplier(also named)Mark, I procured two plywood sheets which were ten feet long instead of the common 8 feet.

      Cutting these plywood boards to fit neatly onto the top of this fountain, was the first step. Next, we took a 14 foot long square four by four timber and cutting a square hole into the middle of the plywood, we put the tall post into the center of the fountain base, standing up 14 feet into the air. Several cables were used to attach to the top of the tall center post and angle to the base of the plywood circle. If you can imagine it, the twelve cables and wires which held up the center post, now looked like the framework of a Christmas tree, with a 10 foot diameter bottom.

     Now with the structure of a tree built, I had a few options to consider. The obvious first choice was to run verticle strings of lights up each of the twelve guide wires. This however seemed just a little too typical and not terribly original. I then thought of another idea. I bought fairly economical nine foot strands of faux evergreen garlands. Starting on the tipy top(where I had fastened a lighted snowflake design) I started to circle the tree structure essentially swirling the garlands in a candy cane-style swirl with the strands about a foot apart.  I then attached similar swirling strands of white lights attached to the garlands. I placed huge white sparkly snow flake flat “ornaments” onto the tree. Since you could still see through the swirls of evergreen and lights into the interior of this hollow tree structure, I placed 3 flood lights into the middle of the tree interior. The effect is to see a unique tree which is instantly familiar as a large tree, yet, just like all of our design efforts, something no one has ever really quite seen before. In other words, uniquely standing as it’s own creative take on the common Christmas tree. I like to think it’s similar to the fact that our homes are instantly recognizable as homes, but each is uniquely Miracle in design.

     Inside the home, we added  a few creative touches of Christmas here and there. The funny thing about most home builders, they don’t usually take the effort to decorate their homes for any Holiday. I always think that just doing a very little touch of each holiday shows the public the additude of detail that we take the time to do that others do not take the time to do.

     Homes are all about evoking feelings and moods. What an opportunity to do a little something to bring the warmth of Christmas into our visitor’s experience. We have scented candles burning, stockings hung,and  videos changed to the  Christmas variety. To top off the Hybrid Wonderhome’s minor Christmas decor change-over, the new owners(they are likely not moving in until the early months of 2011, so hurry on over)were generous enough to bring over one of the largest red Christmas poinsettias I have ever seen! You can’t miss it , right by the stairs.

     We are open Monday and Wednesday nights from 6 to 8pm, so I hope you will come over and see the Christmas  ”magic“.  We are also open weekends from 1 to 4.

     Now just a little teaser item to leave you with. We have been working on a new major promotional incentive package to be a part of our homes. If you listen to the radio this Wednesday on WISN and B93(Wklh and WTMJ start next week), you will hear a hint of the BIG NEWS. I have been building and selling homes for a very long time now(over 2,000 homes by my calculations)  and I have never heard of a promotion like we are about to launch. If you want to get a head-start on the basis of this one, you will have to call us on the phone or stop by the models. These  incentives are truly incredible(even though that sounds a lot like over-the-top ad lingo, it surely applies to this one).

    Thanks for bloggin with me. Until we blog again…

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     WARNING: This blog should have been 2 blogs! It is quite long but, I hope “tolerable”  or even enlighting.

There are certain questions which seemed to get asked a lot at our open houses.  I have formulated standard answers to most of them, as they are based on easy to understand facts. Such questions as “How long have you been in business?(Since 1993 but we built our first home in 1990), “How many homes have you built?“( I say north of 2,000), “How long does it take to build a home?”(3 to 6 months), most of the answers to common questions are just simple facts.

     Then there is the question of which this blog topic is based on today. That question usually comes at the time someone has just seen one of our new-fangled creative innovations or inventions. The question is “Where do you guys come up with all of these creative ideas?” Sometimes that question is followed by something like “Do you have a creative team or do lots of folks contribute their ideas?” The answer COULD , just like the other common questions, be also answered by a citing an easy factual answer, but the question is one that if answered factually, it makes me seem like an egomaniac.  I have been accused of many things but those who know me know I have always had  trouble answering this question since I don’t feel comfortable citing the fact that …(are you ready,here-goes)…I am usually the one who comes up with creating our ideas and I am the one who tries to find ways to make those ideas happen.  My creative “team” is usually just little-‘ol me, or at least for the main “creative” part. THERE, I said it. Having said it, you can see now just how big-headed such a statement seems….and in fact IS. I want to say that just because I come up with an idea and may draw it out in fine detail, I often need to get creative folks into the picture to get these new ideas or new items  made into reality.

      For expample, in one of our theatre-type projects, I wanted two side stages which would have moving statues of Marylyn Monroe and John Wayne.I would draw the basic poses and find the resource material for references but then I know the right source to send this plan to to get the statues made.

     Better said, I am the “hub” of the “creations”  as I make the preliminary drawings, then tweak the preliminary drawings and models to meet my bigger picture vision.  If , for example, in our latest edition of the Parade Of Homes Model, I wanted a room to smell like an evergreen forest on a timing cue, I can think all I want about how to do this, but that alone will not get the job done. I needed to ferret out a source who had smellizer machines(and I was not even sure such machines actually existed!). I obtain the source to get the machines, I design the area to hold them, but someone else actually has built the machine and, under my direction, then someone else actually installs them in the manner I direct them to be installed.  

     In the same Parade model, I wanted a new exterior item which would resemble outdoor mural banners. The intent was to give a sense of whimsy and charm to the backyard while also giving privacy and acting as an exterior “wall. For this idea, I drew the detailed wall sections, placed them on the plans, then my on staff draftsman took my drawings and transferred them to computer renderings. I critique the computer  renderings and then, if needed,  my draftsman re-works them until they are in line with my original “big picture” intentions. I then draw(I came from an artist background) the detail of the mural art and hand that over to an on-staff ex-Disney illustrator who then proceeds to ad his own creative flair.For example, I drew a cow on a surf board with a polka-dot bikini covering the utters. This staff artist then proceeds to create his own idea of a stylized cow which has his own creative touches. The cow , the surfing waves, the beach, the tiki-bar and it’s patrons are all first created by me. Then our artist ads his own details and then  , just like the draftsman, shows me his art for approval before proceeding into production. We have a source who we send the items to to make the banner/murals. When they return, I brainstorm with someone who has never seen such a thing/application before(because this is a new system and now needs a new mounting system customized to work with hanging the mural from all 4 sides). Much of our new creative innovations are seat-of-the-pants engineered, then put into reality by the trial and error process.

     I hope this gives you some idea of how things are created here at Miracle.

     You see, while I do spend many hours thinking and living in what I call my creative mode, coming up with lots of wild ideas, while I am the one to push these ideas into reality, I truly can not take the credit for making these dreams into reality. I am the hub of the idea, but then others must get involved to carry them out, and later, pay the bills to make them happen. In a bigger sense,  IF I am true to my religious beliefs.  I must admit, for years, I simply found it easier and quicker to tell a white lie, when folks ask who comes up with all of our unusual  ideas, (admittedly not a very religious thing in and of itself) than to say something brash  like “I create the ideas”. Instead, I would say, something like“Oh well, it takes a lot of creative heads and it is hard to tell where all the ideas come from but I am just happy to be a part of it”.

     When folks ask that on- the -spot question, they really are not wanting some long-winded  answer or religious story, so I tell this “pat” answer. Over the years, I have asked associates and even my church Pastors, what the proper , honest thing is to say in this situation. Shall I just give a cute answer and avoid the question such as “Gee, that’s our big secret, but they sure are some cool ideas”. That is not really an answer, just a side-step. I have a desire to give glory to God since I believe he created (sorry for getting a bit religious here but my blog seems to have a way of  getting my thoughts out that I might not otherwise easily verbalize) us all. So, my answer of late is “well, the ideas just seem to fall down from Heaven into my head then onto our plans, then it takes a lot of hands to make them happen”.

     The problem is that in saying this “cute” religious answer, it still seems quite self serving to my way of thinking. This writing I am afraid has no conclusion or big revelation. I would  however ask anyone out there reading this to give me your thoughts on giving a quick, honest, and satisfying(to the questioner and me)answer to the question of “who comes up with all of our creative ideas?”

     As my blog headline insinuates, I thought, in  light of this question/answer dilemma, I thought it might be fun to try an experiment in creative thinking right here on today’s blog.I promise, I am giving this little thought or pre-organizing. I have no current idea , I am starting now with my mind being essentially a blank slate for this experiment. I want to simply demonstrate how I brainstorm a creative idea(s)  to myself and things I tell myself when I go through this intimate (until now) private,personal creative process. I usually start with some initial question to myself, and then just see what direction I find and where it all leads. Let’s begin my experiment.  Here is how it goes.

   Picking just any subject while I type….let’s see…let’s pick the subject of multi-generational dwellings. Most municipalities have pretty big issues with anyone who may just choose to build a mother in-law guest suite onto the home. You see, you can not have a totally separate “wing” on the home , complete with sleeping/kitchen/laundry/bathroom/living area. I know from studying the newest generation of home buyers that soon having 2 houses in one will be a very hot item. In this economy, it is much cheaper to have two families living under one roof. Family members are wanting to now live under the same roof after adulthood, or parents are wanting to move-in instead of going to a nursing home. Young unmarried adults are having babies and grandparents are being the care-takers for these kids.

      I think having two houses in one house is a wonderful idea but let’s think of the possible ways it could be done and NOT be considered a duplex situation, because, believe me, communities will notallow duplexes to be built unless zoned accordingly. I have sat across tables from village planners and it just will not be allowed.  The problem is that many folks who want 2 family homnes, do not want the ordinary duplex lot.

     I have tinkered with having a traditional ranch design then finishing out the basement to be fully set with laundry room, bath(s), a bar which has everything a kitchen would have, and even multiple bedrooms. Because many rec-rooms already have bars and guest bedrooms, and laundry rooms, putting a whole, self-contained level into the basement would not be an issue. Now let’s think about the access from the garage. I think, since this could be a 2 family situation, let’s think making a 4 car garage. Just so the garage does not overwhelm the home from the outside, perhaps one stall can be a double-deep one?

     It is also not unusual in designs today to have a second staircase from the garage going into the basement, so this could be in fact the private access to the basement. Another way could be to have the one back hall entry into the main level be more of a front foyer which would have doors which could go from the main level into the basement level without being seen from the main level. Just like an apartment where everyone enters a common lobby, then can choose to go upstairs or down or on main level.

     Hey, I just had a brainstorm idea with that last item. Let’s say we take a traditional 2 story home and now do this complete living level for the basement. Now lets do the same for the upstairs level. This might be a little harder since we are walking the tight-rope between duplex and single family. We need this to be deemed a single family to work in most neighborhoods. We could however use a master bedroom on the  first floor home design, and maybe a “study”(second bedroom) next to the master. Now on the second floor , we could make one of those popular bonus rooms over the garage. This could have another “full” bar/kitchen and lots of seating area. The bedrooms could be 2 or 3 upstairs. I think this could work. In effect, we would now have 3 levels of potential self-contained living. The trick is to do this in a smaller house of say, a 2,200 square foot 2-story. I think that could be done!

     As for the ranch, let’s brainstorm say a 1,500 to 2,000 square foot ranch, then put a full efficiency apartment over the garage as a bonus room.

     As for building in natural daylight into the basement, we could use those deep window wells for egress windows but the views are not very desirable. I would like to explore the notion of a downstairs/basement courtyard. The courtyard would work even on a flat lot and could be covered partially by roof.

      My mind now goes to the subject of how cold it gets in Wisconsin. I recently built a series of outdoor “rooms” into our Parade home model in Richfield. Lots of folks loved the concept but would say “too bad you can only use the outdoor rooms for 6 or 7 months a year“(if you are lucky). This open basement courtyard now makes me think of how to keep this area and exterior rooms warm, yet open to the elements. I just experimented with using  devices which blew air to create invisible walls of wind. The theory was that they were to hold in/out bugs and temperatures. Since (I think) I was the first single family home builder to use this technology in this manner, I am now experimenting in real life with how to make this work, or optimize it.  Perhaps heated concrete could make a difference. I know blocking wind is crucial in making out door room temperatures tolerable.

      What if I could design wind blocking  exterior walls in all 4 directions and yet make them not seem to close-in these outdoor rooms? Perhaps, using trees or tightly placed evergreen tall hedges on one side, then scattered openings with blocking devices beyond the visual of those openings might work. I heard recently of electric heating panels which creates warmth radiantly but draws little energy and is pleasing to the eye as it appears to be a ceiling tile. What if I could use that on the bottomside of a main floor outdoor deck which covers an exposed basement patio? I have just such a home in Richfield. Perhaps I should get my hands on such a device and test it?

      The creative process goes leaping from one idea to another. Then I grab my pad of graph paper and start doodling a concept or two. Then I go Googling to find out if such a radiant heating device has any specs available. The process keeps going and growing.

     I am afraid this blog has grown into a very long one so perhaps we should end this edition. The concept of creative ideas starts with first seeing a  need or problem(Why can’t we live outdoors in the Winter, for example, or Why can’t we build multi-family homes in single family zoned areas?) and then asking why can’t we put our normal rationals aside and see what everyone else is not seeing. Most don’tsee, just because no one else has questioned the norms or tried to break a false boundry.

      Thanks for staying with this very long blog. I invite your comments.

     I hope to see you all at Reflections Village in Richfield this weekend or Monday and Wednesday nights 6 to 8pm.

     Blessings,

      Tom Hignite

     It seems that more and more predictions are being made every week as to when the home sales slump(recession) is ending. Last week I attended a seminar from a few expert speakers including one from the Federal level who came up from Chicago. I always like when the Feds speak because you would think(and they will tell you so) that they have no agenda or axe to grind. They are only there to report facts and figures.

     The speaker reported that by any measure of economic measuring, by any means of doing  such measures, and by any way of looking at all of  the  historical data, The recession has in fact already come to an end.

    I thought you might be interested in knowing the “facts” that Mr. Willaim Strauss, Senior Economist and Economic advisor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago had to say in his speech last week.

1. Economic hard times may have been with us since 2006, but the actual recession did not start until December of 2007.

2. We have now had 5 consecutive quarters of gain in our economy.

3. The “Great Recession” (as it is being called) ended in June 2009 and the Economy has expanded by 3.1% over the past year.

4. Growth has been much slower over the past 2 quarters.

5. Very few sectors of the Market are still falling. Most businesses are slightly gaining or flattening but at least they are no longer falling.

6. We are currently in the “recovery” stage of the economic cycles. That means since our economy had lost 4.1% of our countries total economic output, we are in the phase of regaining that loss, hence, we are in recovery. At the present projected rate of recovery, we should be rcovering this loss by the late 4th quarter of this year! That is coming soon.

7. This has been the slowest recovery in ALL recessions in our history. The main reason for the slow recovery is lack of credit.

8. Right now, companies, banks, and many higher income people have large reserves of money they are saving(holding on to) and they are ready to spend it. they are watching for the market conditions to improve before spending.

9. The housing market sector has bottomed and is now increasing but it will not bounce back quickly but rather it will be a slow and steady increase.

10. Nationally, Vegas and Florida home prices are yet to find bottoms.

11. The housing market right now is more affordable than it has been in decades. Interest rates are at historical lows. People “should” be jumping in to the housing market. Housing “should” by all rights be gong gangbusters.

12. Inflation is not a problem and should not be in the near future or next year. Interest rates will creep up slowly but still be very good. Not as good as may be found currently.

One other item that was not housing related but I thought was interesting enough that I wrote his statement, as close to “ word for word” as I could manage to write.   He said , “The concept that we are loosing industrial production in America is pure manure! We are mechanizing production processes, so manufacturing jobs are less”. I know general public  sentiment is that we are losing jobs overseas, so I thought this was an interesting comment.

     Let’s shift gears away from that seminar and into my sales field. I seriously can not remember a November when we have had more sales activity than this time we are currently living in. Usually, a sector of home buyers are waiting for the Holidays to end before really looking at homes again. I have not seen this normal market condition as of yet. Our model homes traffic  (especially in Reflections Village – Richfield) has been very strong. We have been pricing more and more homes every week.

     Just as we down-sized to meet the declining housing market in 2006/2007, we are currently staffed and poised to handle MUCH more building than we are currently signing.  That is because we do not want to see any negative service come to our clientele.  In the home business, it does not matter how many radio ads or television commercials I put on the air. Referral business (repeat business) is by far the strongest advertising we can do. For that reason, we are well positioned to build MANY more homes than we are currently building.  As a side note, we are pricing homes for 3 clients currently who have built before with us. What a blessing!

     We have signed several contracts in the past two weeks but we still have huge numbers of potential building slots in our production schedule. The last thing we want to hear is that we seem too busy to give great service to any client.  Our construction managers and clients seem to having a very satisfying time(I would wager to say the best I have ever seen) building homes since the work loads per Miracle staffer is so manageable and comfortable.  That excites me since I  genuinely like satisfying people and I know that these folks will surely send many more friends and associates our way. 

     The big question is, are we out of our housing slump? I would be forced to say a cautious , yet enthusiastic “yes”. After several years of declining sales, it seems like Christmas is coming early this year.

     Speaking of Christmas, I spent the day out at Richfield’s Reflections Village along with a staffer or two starting our Christmas decorations and lights. We removed the water from the big 10 foot diameter concrete fountain in front of our Hybrid WonderHome in Richfield and have started creating our own “Tree Of Lights” in it’s place. I am using the front (garage) windows on two of the homes and gathering the items to put up a grand set of animated and lighted Window displays. My boys and I were rummaging through the warehouse earlier today finding all sorts of fanciful Disneyesque times. I hope you will all stop by and see them when they are finished next week.

     I really hope you will stop out tomorrow and see me at our Reflections Village Hybrid WonderHome.  We are open from 1 to 4 as well as Monday and Wednesday nights from 6 to 8. One last note of optimismwas observed this last Wednesday night at our Richfield models. . We had 5 excellent  visiting groups!  Hooray (cautiously/optimistically) for housing!

     Until we blog again,

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     There we were, digging dirt on what was to be a landmark project unlike anything (I dare say) ever seen anywhere before. A small circle, or village, of 12 homes and one castle-like center building complete with waterways  for our guests to enter by boat from the parking lot. The homes would each have a retail component where you might shop for the latest plumbing items in one home’s garage/store, and art work and home decor in another. All run by Miracle Homes and could become part of any new Miracle Home. There would be a swimming beach, mini-golf, horse riding, a club house, fitness center, and much more. All would be extra “perks” for any Miracle Home client as a sort of club for Miracle Home owners.

       After years of planning , and meetings, and creating, our Germantown project , Miracle Village, was now seemingly just a few months away. A year ago , the home building business had been going so well that I had even decided to expand our advertising department into a totally new direction which would  try to fulfill another passion of mine, cartooning and illustration.  If it is true that each of us has many goals in life we want to accomplish, one of mine would be to to have an advertising and illustration company.

     My background and education was in art and advertising. I see home design as a great extension, or a combination, of most of the arts. If I could choose only one profession, it would be home designing/building. If I could choose two, it would be illustration or film making, or theatrical productions.(If I could have a close third, it would be doing restaraunt and hotel conceptualizing, fourth, nursing or elderly home design, fifth….)  I had always thought that once home building would  become self-sufficient, I would branch out into accomplishing one of my other passions.

     As we (with God’s graces and blessings)had grown Miracle Homes into something which seems now to be a juggernaut of a business, I began to take steps into using my energies to start hiring a staff of creative artists to attempt to (get ready for this) animate a children’s story ala the best Walt Disney classic 2d animated movies.  I had seen a major shift at Disney of this major, historic creative company . Disney, who had all but invented the art form of hand drawn 2d animation , now was laying-off their animation staff by the hundreds. They slammed the doors closed on many of their animation studiosaround the World  including their Orlando Florida location, leaving a great pool of artist unemployed.  Disney’s idea seemed to be that they would have a smaller animation staff to create the story concepts then partner with overseas , lower cost animation studios to do the heavy lifting of the actual bulk of drawing.  This seemed to me to be the loss of a great American heritage and art form.  At the time, it also seemed a great business opportunity.

     I flew to the coasts to interview many ex-Disney animation artists and eventually ended up hiring 14 such artists. We started on a project which was to carry our Miracle Homes mascot character Miracle Mouse ( many might say he bears a certain resemblance to another famous mouse or two)character into his own short movie featurette. I had dabbled in using Miracle Mouse in short animated bits at the end of our live action television commercials over the past many years. I had learned a little(very little) about the animation process from those commercials  and reading on the subject. I had gone to various art colleges  for my art education(the 7 year, 5 school, no degree plan) but , that detail will have to wait until another future blog entry.   Back to the subject at hand, our new building project Miracle Village.

      Everything seemed to be going well. Our unique project was underway.  A new creative buiness was finding it’s start.  Home sales were continuing their trend upward, ever upward when it happened.  As I recall, it was around the very end of 2005 and early 2006 when we first started to feel the home sales starting to decline. For the first many months, we  wondered if this was just a small , temporary blip downward or if perhaps I was not giving enough of my efforts to the home building department. I tried to shift my attentions to focus more to advertising the home division and our newly expanded Appleton division  and a little less to animation and Miracle Village. We were still having barely satisfactorysales numbers but Jacquie and I were getting increasingly  concerned. A lot of good folks where under our roof and were depending on us to succeed. 

      Finally in late Spring 2006 , I announced to our animation staff that if we did not see the home sales trend reverse itself in the next 3 months, we would need to lay-off that department.  Animation artists have come to see animation as being somewhat “nomadic” by nature (as they may work for a year or two on a certain project then be layed-off until the next project is ready).Many of these artists had hoped this would be different.  I had hoped I could offer a more stable work environment for this profession. That was not to be.  With the warning signs now becoming more apparent,  I wanted this staff to have as much lead time as possible to find other work .  It was obvious to me, as much as it would break my heart,  that if down-sizing at Miracle was to occur, this department had to be first.  That day did come 3 months later , despite my attempts to advertise our services to other agencies and try to promote to find an investor in our project.

     We continued to monitor the home sales situation with plans to consolidate our 3  year old Appleton operation into our main office  next and then ultimately having to (temporarily?) halt our Miracle Village project. We had hoped this would be only for a few months, until the housing market returned.   At that point, we were most blessed indeed to have had the fortune of not having gone the route of investing in large tracts of land, like most of our Home building competition had done. Having land when the market does not want to buy land is a very hard thing to overcome. Now was the time to pull down every cost we could find, consolidate our workforce, right-size the company to the market buckle-down and ride out the storm.

     As fun and rewarding it was to ride the housing wave upward, the ride to re-size our company to being the right size for the market was one of the most mentally difficult thing I have ever had to do. What we all had to keep in mind was that as long as we could remain creative and innovative in our home designs and make the move into the new market of smaller, less costly homes, Miracle could and would survive and , funny as it sounds , even eventually expand and regain any lost ground, over time.

     Jacquie and I had grown Miracle Homes in our early years by building 15 to 25 homes all by ourselves. We could do that again if needed. The road had been a bit bumpy but Miracle had remained strongly intact.  Thanks to the help of a somewhat famous political  Wisconsin name, we entered into the area of building our first spec-homes. This business “friend” had land and lots.  He also had the vision to succeed and saw that if he wanted to succeed in selling the land, putting houses onto these lots was far better game plan than trying to sell raw land or lots.

     We got on board and we started designing unique smaller homes in the lower price categories.This developer was also a Godsend in overseeing our right-sizing efforts and walking alongside us AND reminding us how comparatively well we were doing in this depressed housing market.  Now 4 years later, with God’s many graces, we have succeeded in remaining a top performer in what many call the worst housing market ever to hit America. 

      We have had opportunities come our way, and new doors have opened.  This past year we even had the opportunity to build 3 spectacular homes in the MBA Parade Of  Homes! Most financial expertsseem to agree that this housing downturnhas bottomed,  is not going to get any worse and is now starting to trend slightly upward. Home sale prices have started rising ever so slightly. In the past few years, I had thought we were pulling out of the housing sales declines only to find I was wrong, but this time….?

     Along the way, my perspective has changed to see how the road-block of Richfield having blocked our way to build our office project on our own land, next to our home, was in fact a huge blessing in disguise.  Our current home and office situation is the perfect size for us and this market.  hindsight is surely 20/20.  Along the way, we have somehow remained able to remain “creative” and introduced new home building concepts and ideas, as well as offer the lowest priced (Dream Series) homes now in this market!

       As for the animation part of the picture, I have developed a network of talent and when ad agencies come to me for doing the once in a while animation  project, my one remaining ex-Disney staffer and our various off-premise artist network have kept this door open as well.

     I hope to never lose sight that we are primarily a creative based company direction of creativity just so happens to be the art for of designing and building extraordinary homes…..in Richfield.

    I hope you will stop by this Monday or Wednesday night from 6 to 8 or this weekend from 1 to 4 to see our creative masterworks in Richfield’s Reflections Village.

     Until we blog again,

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

You may want to start by reading the first 2 parts of this three-parter, but I will try to make this one stand on it’s own merits for those who don’t want to read a “novel”.

     My wife Jacquie and I had several “miracles” of our own which paved the way to us moving from Milwaukee, building in Richfield, and a few years later opening our own business. A few short years after opening Miracle Homes, we hired our two first staffers to hopefully be then able to double our home building out-put. It did not work that way. Both Connie and Rick were very hard workers and had very good attitudes. I would recommend them to any future employer.

     The reality is that no matter how excellent your staff may be, you simply cannot expect the same work hours , heart and soul efforts that the owners of the business just naturally have . That is because, if the business fails, the business failure will drag down every dream of those owners and potentially be a financial ruin for those owners for years to come. Business owners risk everything to open their doors and do business. If everything goes wrong in a certain business, the staff usually moves on and does not need to carry the burdens of that failure. Not so for owners.

     I think it is for that reason , more than any, that business owners pour every waking moment into their business.  Therefore, hiring two more people to work alongside Jacquie and myself, just did not equate to twice the productivity.That was my first big lesson in business hiring expectiations.  We were however able to grow our production capacity to 30 to 40 homes instead of our pre-staffer level of 20 to 25 homes. Since we had the lofty goal of becoming the most successful home builder in the area, we wanted to continue to expand. I had no idea how many staffers we could fit into our Richfield home/office.  We were working from a den which was off the foyer. As we added another staffer, we fit 3 people into that den. As we tried to add another, we found the foyer was big enough to add a desk and have the copy machine fit as well. We had a circular metal staircase going up to a loft from the foyer, so we finished off that area to become a accountant’s office for our newly added “controller”. When we found that controller not working out, we outsourced that position and then the loft was to become the new home to our first sales staffer. A  half year later, that sales person had another staffer to share sales space with, soon, another.

     By the time our little business grew to 6 staffers, I realized our growth could out-grow our home-office. I went to Richfield to ask what we could do to expand our business. I found that 6 staffers were the maximum we could be allowed to have in such a home business arrangement. The (then) planner of Richfield told me to find a piece of land where we had no neighbors to bother and build there. I searched and found a 38 acre parcel just a few blocks down the road from our present location. I asked the planner what he thought of that location and he said that he could not imagine this site bothering anyone since we had a factory across the street. I also knew that we still had a potential issue with the number of staffers which would surely exeed  the current 6 allowed on site. The planner had expressed that the home business rules were currently under re-consideration and that the number of staffers would most surely be increased to do with acreage and building square footages.

     With that, we built our current home-office. This 7,500 square foot home is essentially a 2,500 square foot ranch with a large lobby separating it from the office area. It has a lower level finished out (complete with a basketball court, which would later become our television studio for our home show specials) and a loft area. I designed it so the future owners(there always are future owners) could use half of the building for  the family and the office side for a great in-law or guest suite.  While we ultimately did even outgrow this building in the hey-day of home building in the 2004 area, following the home market down-turn, we did return to this home where we now, once again,  comfortably meld our home and business life together.

     There is something that just feels so right about being able to roll out of bed and into a meeting room of visitors on a Saturday morning or working for a few minutes at midnight in the office then walk a hundred feet to my living room. I think, I hope, this arrangement also feels better for our staffers who will surely not find such an environment in most any other workplace.

      In 2004 and 2005, we tried to build onto our current Richfield home by first going to the Richfield officials to see how to accomplish this. They told us the process to try to re-zone the parcel so we could build a large office building on the side or near our home, on our property. At first, it seemed to be a very happy thing indeed.  As I explained in Part 1 of this blog series, I was enthralled by the whole idea of creating something that would be a landmark building for Richfield and the community. I was blinded by what I could not see anyone possibly objecting to such a creative endeavour. Boy was I wrong!

    When I went to the first Richfield meeting on this, there was a group (it felt like a “mob”) of folks who were there to object to our plans. They saw this as an invasion of their  near-by residential lifestyle. I could not understand why they did not seem to object to the 125 staffers that the tool and die factory across the street from our property may cause to their lives. They did not seem to see see any harm from the Drywall compound factory or the gun barrel factory, or even the neighbors who had a small factory and horse business across the street from them. They did not seem to mind the truck/auto repair home business which was operating without the sanction of Richfield who was my direct neighbor. 

     I hope this does not sound like I hold any grudges against any of these neighbors since I truly do not. Each of us has our own unique perspective and I just had trouble seeing their perspective. At the time, I was first genuinely surprised that these folks had not just called me or come to me to discuss their concerns or talk this out. When I came through the town boardroom doors, it seemed I was the enemy. I went to the apparent “ring -leader” of the group afterwards at the back area of the meeting hall and quietly asked him if we could meet to discuss the whole thing. This man who had never talked to me before curtly told me we had nothing to discuss. Another stranger came to me in the midst of the room and accused me of jeopardizing my Christianity. A few days later I heard this “ring-leader” was holding a neighborhood meeting about me at his house. I called and dropped-off a letter asking him if I could please be present at his meeting to try to resolve and understand the issues. He declined to have me there.

    I tried to reach out by having my own meeting and inviting the neighbors to talk this over. Many did come and a few changed their minds to support(or at least not object to) our ideas but most did not change their minds. It was not a pretty situation and one which I felt terrible about since I did not want to have anyone feeling negative about us. I had adopted the mantra that if everyone would just hear me out, and see our traffic and impact studies and STILL were not convinced, I would with-draw my idea to build our expanded office building.

     The day came when fianlly got my chance. I had a big Richfield model built for the presentation. I did my big town board presentation and it seemed to not gain any traction. The Milwaukee news media had now picked-up on the whole matter which seemed to be for the worse .  At the same meeting, a Germantown official came to me asking us to consider building in their town. I started on that path to ultimately find a good 80 acre parcel, all the approvals, and a most cooperative board. We did have another group of objectors to the whole idea. Again, if the board and the neighbors would hear me out and still not want it, so be it.  This time I got the go-ahead.  I with-drew my building ideas for Richfield and a few months later started digging ground in Germantown.

      The time now was about 2005 and the market was changing…quickly and abruptly. We had blasted and crushed huge mounds of limestone into what now looked like a quarry on our new Germantown property.  The many waterways which were hoped to carry boatloads of home shoppers to the central home village hub was almost finished. The septic systems were installed for most of the future high-concept homes and offices. The road beds were constructed. The earthen berms which would separate the homes  visually from the streets were largely in place. The complicated foundation walls for our main office building were erected. The main building steel and pre-stressed concrete panels were ready for erection. The deep well which was the answer to a controversy about water table usage , was drilled and ready to pump water from the deep aquifer level. We had even had the Germantown fire department burn down an old farmhouse which Germantown wanted removed from the site.

      It seemed like all the pieces were coming together since the big ground-breaking ceremony just a few months before. Things were about to take a course correction and I was about to have a major “wake-up call”

     I know it is old news to some, but it is funny how things really do seem to happen for a reason and , some might say, for our “good“. Today, I am so thankful for the good folks of Richfield having taken the course they did.  It is funny how time can provide perspective to every situation. In our next, final Richfield report, I will tell you the lessons learned and the new creative directions which were born out of this and still carry on , funny as it may seem, in….Richfield.

     I do hope you will come out to visit our Richfield homes In Reflections Village Monday and Wednesday nights from 6 to 8 and weekends from 1 to 4.

Until we blog again,

     Blessings,

      Tom Hignite

You might want to start by reading the first part to this blog entry but I will try to make this stand on it’s own.

     It was  about 1988. My wife Jacquie and I were living in a small 2-bedroom apartment near (now defunct) NorthRidge Mall. Like many newly weds, we were doing all we could just to pay the monthly bills. Going to movies and out to eat, were not luxuries we could easily afford. We had one child, Nik. A year later we had another boy, Sean.  Neither of our familys were what anyone would call “rich”.

     I was on a home dreaming binge of going to open houses and reading home plan idea books and sketching plans of my own. I was working as a marketing person/salesperson at a Pewaukee Boat dealer, Duchow’s Marine. Jacquie was working as a systems analyst keeping track of tyme machine transactions. I was the artist, she was the book keeper. She found it unusualthat I would spend time dreaming of building a home when it simply was not practical for us to afford thisany time in the forseeable future. I had some weighty tax situations which had followed me from several years before we were married, when a rubber raft(yes rubber raft) business I had owned , had gone bad.

     I was not deterred by nearly every bank in the book that told me we could not afford to build. I found one small bank where the banker did allow me to purchase a lot and if we would pay the lot regularly, we could then, maybe be given a loan to build the home. I drove by a cul DE-sac lot in Richfield which was 2.5 acres for $26,500(this was 1991-ish) and the interest rates were about 13 to 14% as I recall. I remember Pete , a Duchow’s Marine associate of mine who I envied his good fortune as he told me about his 9.9% mortgage rate he had gotten a few years before! I just “knew” those low rates would never be seen again in my lifetime.

     Back to Richfield. We bought this lot , spent a few more years searching for a bank who would give us a mortgage and a few major and minor “miracles” later, we had found our mortgage.The biggest thanks went to one powerful banker who simply decided to take a chance on us.   We went though quitea lot to find a builder who could meet our budget of the home I had designed. During one Parade Of Homes event, I remember taking my plans to about 6 different builders who all looked at the plans and deemed my price goal was unrealistic. We finally  found  one seemingly good home builder, and shortly after starting construction, we separated with that builder over , what I would call, differences of opinion on quality. I remember, for one example, seeing our vinyl siding being installed where the nails were not hitting any studs or wood of any kind. Vinyl siding is supposed to always have the nails embedded into solid wood for holding strength.  When I tired to tell the sider how to “do his job”( a big taboo, as I should have communicated through the builder and never directly with the contractor-except that builder was not able to be reached and I couldn’t sit around and watch someone do a job which would need re-doing, but ….I greatly digress). We soon found ourselves being our own general contractor!

     Many of you have heard of those “We build or You build Your Own home style of builders. We ourselves had already paid our fees and had gone that route so we were already prepared to build the home all by ourselves(with the Build-Yourself list of “approved” subcontractors). That whole story will have to wait for another blog. Suffice to say, we would never go that route if we did not absolutely have to. We did not really save the money we hoped.

     After building our original home in Richfield, we did not think we would be building another home UNTIL my father had gotten a small West Bend subdivision lot after “horse-trading” with a banker for some of my father’s soil expert services. Using the lot for collateral on the loan, after 2 years living in our “new” Richfield, we built our first “Miracle Home” which opened in mid-Winter to nearly 125 visitors and nearly immediately got 2 offers. Someone from Milwaukee came to see the home and wanted us to build his family the same home in Oak Creek. I quit my Duchow’s job (which I loved ) and went into the full-time home building business.

      I remember the first time we came up with the name “Miracle Homes”. We had wanted some way to never allow ourselves to forget the blessed situations and answered prayers that led us from a seemingly hopeless Milwaukee apartment, to a nice Richfield home , to a home building business, all in just a few years time. I wanted the name to reflect Christ without calling ourselves a name which could place ourselves seemingly on a pedestal, or turn-off non-believers, or other faiths. I did not want the name to be too preachy, just a reminder to us..always. To carry this a little further, I somewhat subliminally incorporated the sign of a descending dove , hidden into our home graphic logo.

     I remember how upset Jacquie was when I insisted we needed a company phone number apart from our home number. Even though we operated out of our Richfield home’s den(right off the foyer), we did not have any staff and Jacquie wanted to just use our home number in case this home building thing was not going to last.  I  was confident (or cocky) enough to insist we would succeed and that we should not want to mix business and home calls.

     After a few early years of building about 15 to 20 homes a year with just Jacquie and myself, (all for clients, we did not want to build without a buyer’s contract on speculation), we had hit a “wall”. I thought we had now learned our craft , had some great designs and now was ready to introduce ourselves into the Milwaukee market. We joined the Metropolitan Builder’s Association in 1997(as I best recall), and a year or so later we launched onto the Milwaukee scene with our first radio ads and our first appearance in the MBA Parade Of Homes.

     Shortly before the Parade, we hired our first staffer Connie. She seemed like a great friendly personality, as did Rick. He would come a little later and was our first expediter. The logic seemed simple. I had come up with a company goal of becoming the most Successful Home builder in Washington County, Wisconsin, and then the entire World! Talk about a big bodacious goal!  We thought , if we could build 20 homes with just Jacquie and myself, than by hiring another “Tom” and another “Jacquie”, this  would allow us to double our output.

     We were to soon find out that it did not quite work out that way. I will expound on this point next time in our next final(?) part of this blog series. Richfield played a major role in our success and I think they may very well play a major role in our future success as well. What a place to live! You really ought to see it for yourselves(perhaps this weekend or Monday/Wednesday nights at our 3 fabulous Richfield models. 2 are still for sale if you want to see Richfiled from the “inside ” for yourself)

    Unitl we blog again…

    Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

     I find it difficult to put into words but the feeling I get when I go to see our 3 newest  homes AND the wonderful new development we have built them in is that I am having an “affair” with this Richfield development called Reflections Village.

     I know my Christian background tells me that I should never hold material things in the same regard as spiritual things, so I must stress that this is on an entirely different level from that BUT, IF I were to love material things(somewhere down the line from church, family, fellow human beings, and so forth)I would definitely be “smitten” by this whole concept and what promises it has ahead.

     As you may know, I enjoy the creative efforts of making , and innovating new things. I enjoy stretching the imagination and designing things that no one has ever seen before. I hope that does not sound too self serving. 

     About 20 years ago, I came to Richfield to build my very first(personal) home. We started Miracle Homes right out of our home  a few years later. A few more years after that, we came to Richfield’s building inspector to see what we had to do because we   wanted to buy and expand onto a near-by 38 acre property. We did that and , other than a few years when our staff of 60 out-grew that property and we moved for 3 years to the near-by community of Polk(across from what is now Cabela’s retail store), we remain today in Richfield.

     As a part of this town, since we first started our business here,we  wanted to “give-back” to Richfield, we went to the fire department and made it a target of our financial support. We did the same for the Richfield Historical Society. We never did this in the mind of someday needing a favor or pats on the back in return, it was just the right thing to do. Since the economy has gone “tight” on real estate in the past few years. “givng” has been something we now have on our “future” to-do list.  

 When we wanted(NEEDED) to expand our building to fit our growing staff, we decided to build a fantasy-like business development on our land. Our current home would be right next door to this new , big building. They would be only 100 feet apart or so.

    I wanted to make this something that the whole community might use and have it be a gathering place for many. I had designs to create a large theatre for home building seminars which could double as a community theatre. I had ideas of recreating famous historical rooms(George Washington’s sitting room , or Abe Lincoln’s Cabin)  to be used as conference rooms perhaps for the community to use to spice-up other companies  or churches off-premise meetings. I designed a large indoor pool for guests and visitors to use as well as an indoor mini main street which looked like an old street but was actually company run gift shops, magazine shops(library style), a video arcade, even a “pet shop” ( really just a 2-story bird atrium and a few caged bunnies to hold and pet for young visitors). The elevator was made of glass and it went through a fountain and as you passed through the fountain, you saw Wisconsin game fish. On the lower level, this big fish tank surrounded the elevator on three sides.

     A children’s play area would be only accessed via secret book case passages and once inside, a series of tunnels would meander with peeking windows  throughout the public areas, ending with a slide to where you first began.  The main lobby would remind you of a grand old hotel and you would feel like you had stepped into some opulent vacation rather than be coming to a business meeting or such. For the staff, the offices where more of suites and many had themes. In the midst of the book keeping (remember, this is primarily a construction business) area, this expansive room was to display a tall house built of children’s building blocks which seemed to have small characters building the structure. Every hour, the whole block structure would shudder and appear to be on the verge of collapse. At noon, the whole thing actually would collapse. After lunch however, it would be re-building itself again until it finally collapsed again at the end of the workday at 5pm.

     In the midst of the grand hotel-like foyer was a grand piano. Here our Miracle Mouse mascot was playing the piano with special songs which evoked that day or day part, or season. We would have cheerful wake-up songs (Lois Armstrong’s What a Wonderful Day)or Disney’s” Hi-Ho, Hi-HO It’s Off To Work We Go”) when it is time to start work. Once the day started, the piano would suddenly stop playing and our piano playing mascot would slump down and go to sleep laying his head on the Piano bench with pillow. He would snore away until it was time to start his piano music for the lunch hour. After lunch music, he would sleep again only to awake for “quitting time” music. When it was a visitors birthday or if a visitor wanted a special request, Miracle Mouse could be awoken and he would do his special song for that visitor. In this way, the piano would signal what time it is of the day to staffers.

     We would have an interactive area where you could see first hand how homes were built and see a virtual history of home building in a museum like experience. We even had a magic shop where you could see unusual optical illusions and a magicina could perform close-up magic for special events.  The bunnies could appear then go into the pet shop area.

     It was to be a grand thing indeed. We even had the plans done, the place rough staked, and the artist rendering in progress.  Boy,  was I in for a surprise. As I said, I was really naive in the ways that community approvals worked. I thought that since the village president(or perhaps he was the past president, that’s how un-politically connected I was)was plowing our driveway snow, and since I had shown him the ideas and he seemed to like them, I never imagined anyone would have any issues with this “wonderful” dream.

     Boy was I ever wrong! I will tell you what they thought and how things always happen for a reason, in my next posting. Until then, suffice it to say that Richfield really is a wonderful place to live and if you have not yet seen Reflections Village …see it. Our 3 master-work homes are open Monday and Wednesday nights 6 to 8, and weekends 1 to 4.   Bring your imagination and see 9 beautiful(other builders)  homes, and one drop-dead beautiful bank now opening in Reflections Village mini-town.

Don’t miss the conclusion to this creative endeavour next time!

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

    Last week I heard from a long time member of our Church that Miracle Homes  and me, Tom Hignite, was in a Milwaukee Magazine article. My first thoughts were about the old article which ran way back in 2006 in their magazine which ,in reality , was grossly inaccurate . It was written by someone who came into the story  with a certain point of view and wrote a story to fit his viewpoint/storyline, despite most facts to the contrary.

    I was forewarned about these reporter-like tactics, but I was convinced  that I had never cheated anyone, lied,  had an immoral affair, or had any legal battles which I wanted to hide. I do not drink, smoke, party, and have always tried to do good things for others in the way of helping and donating when the occasion arose. My company was even noted BY Milwaukee Magazine as one of the top 25 places to work in the  Milwaukee area.  Since I was confident of my history and was so sure my nose (and company) was clean, I agreed to be interviewed for an article about me and my company. 

     I never weighed into the equation how my advertising tag line of being “a Christian based home builder” was apparently the major thing they were most affected by. I can only guess now in hindsight that they had had enough of this guy(me) who always professed his religion so now they were going to show what a hypocrite I really was. They seemed to always bring the questioning back to that statement.

       They interviewed my past Pastors, friends,relatives,  employees, and even my past employers. Each called to tell me they had been contacted and about what great things they had to say about me and my past. The funny thing was that these associates were also asking me “Tom, what did you do to this guy? (Dan Libbit, the reporter)He sounds like  he really does not like you and was looking for dirt. He was not very interested in hearing any good things about you”.

    Since he could not find any juicier stories to support his thesis, what this reporter finally was left with was to portray me as some kind of nut case who is trying to be the next Walt Disney.  Worse yet, he painted my business as being on the brink of bankruptcy, and his sole supporting reason for this was because he found one employee (we had 80 at the time) who did not particularly  like me. This staffer had just been told that her job was being cut, and she was working towards a closing of that department.  That ex-staffer simply asked if maybe folks under our roof were soon to be talking about such financial hardships.  You see, at the time, I had an advertising/animation department(there’s that Disney connection) which, due to the bombing 2006 economy, we were closing down that department  to a minimal staff of one.

 This article  may not have been anything about sex, lies,  pay-offs,  cheating someone,or trouble with the law,  but his portrayal of my company as being even remotely close to being financially questionable(not backed up by any numbers or facts, just what he had supposedly heard someone ask someone else), set me  up for what would be a few years of clients asking questions about our solvency. Each time any one would ask, it feels like the innocent peaceful guy who is asked, “is it true you really beat your wife?”.Every time you try to answer this ubsurd question, it can come off as though we are maybe hiding something.   When we set up our big home show booth in the January Expo(following the November article just 3 months prior) we kept hearing things like“Hey , I thought Miracle Homes was “gone”".  

     It is a funny thing how perception has a way of becoming some folk’s reality.  We wanted to let the public know everything was still humming along fine  here at Miracle.   So, in the following months, we produced a series of television specials which would go on to garner 3 Emmy nominations and became the most highly ranked local viewership in their time slots. In some cases, the ratings were higher than the local 6pm news!  We needed to dispel the Milwaukee Magazine’s  slanted  negative article. It seemed to work pretty well and we heard less and less of this concern.

     We made it through the mis-information and time went on , as they say, to heal most all wounds. Here’s where it gets currently  ” interesting”.  2 months ago, again, I got a phone call from a Milwaukee Magazine reporter.   The reporter wanted just a little of my time to ask a few questions about the popularity of ranch style home designs. You would think I might have learned my lesson from the first time.  I thought if I did  not return his call  he could spin that as a negative if he wanted too.  Since this article was to be about homes and this other article was now over 4 years in the past, things might be different.  After some consideration, I called this reporter back.   It seemed all he wanted was  my opinion and comments on just why I thought the ranch market was such a strong market.

     I told him, I was probably the wrong person to be talking to since I strongly disagree that the ranch is   the dominant home design choice at present. While Ranches are surely still popular, the 2-story has over-taken the Ranch.  I went on to say that if he was going to write an article which showed the real direction of home designs, I would say the 2-story is , and has been, handily beating the demand for ranches in the last 2 years of my experience.  He did not seem happy to hear that at all. I thought he would probably just not use my comments since I went on to say we are selling about 10  2-story homes to every 3 ranches we sell.  I went on to say that the ranch is a  more costly option since the basement and roof had to be bigger on a ranch over the same size square footage in a 2-story home.

     He then asked if I ever saw the ranch market going away completely(or something to that effect). I said, that would not likely happen since older folks would usually gravitate towards the ranch since it avoids a staircase to a second floor. That quote was the only remotely accurate quote he used from our discussion, but he fragmented/edited the quote.   He went on to quote me using the phrase “Hybrid Ranch”. This is a statement I would not make since it is inaccurate.

     Funny thing. As he went on to then  change the name of a home of ours (The Miracle Hybrid Wonderhome) to the Hybrid Ranch, he missed the bigger story about this new style of home which is the first time such a design has been shown in this market(to my knowledge). This home, in which they used the photo, is in fact NOT a ranch. It is also NOT a 2-story. That is the whole point of the home. This is a totally new direction of home design where we meld ranch and 2-story together, into something which is part of both but belongs to neither category.

     This newest Milwaukee Magazine article was quite short at only less than a page in length. Even so, they had to again, mention that my company was the one who advertises the “Christian ” tag line and go on to say my company was somehow “controversial“. Other than their 2006 article, I can not remember anyone else ever considering us controversial.  This  got-cha  at any cost Miowaukee Magazine attitude, again   set out with a pre-concieved point of view(This  time about ranches)  and now continues to support their inaccuracies with added little digs to fan the flames.

     Last weekend, one of my long time sales folks came to me saying he was surprised to hear someone again ask about our financial situation he had read in Milwaukee Magazine. The salesperson was perplexed as he had not heard this since that 2006 article had run.  He told that inquiring person , we have just built 3 homes in the Parade Of Homes. We had just erected a giant a giant billboard on the highway pointing folks to see our models. We are in the paper and on the radio every week.   What more can we do to dispell this rumor?

     It is a funny thing how rumors, as false as this, can have such a lasting impression on the public.  I guess I really can’t blame them. After all, they don’t know any more about me than what they may have read about me. Now I know what it must feel like when one of those movie stars who sees something false written about them in the Enquirer!

     I do hope you will read the short 3/4  page mini-article, if nothing else, than to see what Milwaukee Magazine can do to “create” their own  stories.  The reality is that ranch designs, while surely popular are not nearly as popular as 2-story homes. The reason is likely due to this tighter budget buyers who have found the 2-story to be the biggest value.  Walt Disney would be proud of  Milwaukee Magazine’s story-telling!

    It is in the November Issue, now on news stands.

    Blessings,

    Tom Hignite

I was thinking today about doors. Doors may not seem all that exciting, but I will use them as an example of how I sometimes get creatively “bored”. The same analogy could be applied to many other things I come across in my home building journey. 

     Last year in the 2009 Parade,  I decided to build a Craftsman exterior and followed the interior of that home with doors that carried the flavor of a Craftsman home.  This year, it seems everyone wants a craftsman style home. Trouble is, I was designing Craftsman exteriors way back 10 years ago in our Lannon model center. Like many home shoppers, I too try to visit many model homes, visit home shows, and look at the newest home trends in magazines.  When I build my homes, I want to try to introduce items, features , and decorating that no one has ever seen before or at least may be very uncommon. In that way, I want our homes to stand apart from the mass of other homes folks visit. If I can offer a unique trim molding, or a unique layout feature, or , yes,even  a unique door, that makes us just a little more memorable to the home shopper.

     Getting back to last year’s MBA Parade home, I drew a design for a door panel layout I had in my head of having a three panel door with two long/tall panels on the bottom which extended up to bout 3/4 way to the top of the door. Then I wanted one squarish panel on the top of the door. I must have seen this door somewhere, but for the life of me, I have not seen it anywhere I can remember.

   I went to the finish lumber supplier and showed him the style I had in mind. The supplier came back to me with a special door company in Canada who would custom produce these doors. This was an available option, but he had never seen one before(except in print). When I showed these doors  at last year’s Parade, lots of of positive comments flowed. This year, I began seeing more of these doors in other builder homes, so I took a guess that some of the other builders in this year’s Parade may be showing this door style. I didn’t want to take a chance of repeating myself(or others) so I decided to try another three panel door design where we have essentially three equal square panels. Again, I can’t ever remember seeing such a door and I thought the look would appear classically old. Besides, no other builder would likely have seen this so , again, my home would stand out.

    When the Parade opened, I heard that many builders are using the style of door which I had used the previous year, so I was glad I had gone in another direction.  A client came to me a few days ago and wanted to know if we could price out including these really neat doors he saw with two skinny tall panels and one top square panel. I felt like saying “That is last years “old” news! Why not try something “new” ?”  . Of course, I would never say such  thing.  This caused me to think of a few other times when things I do seem to become more common a year or two later. It probably is not  because of someone copying me, but rather just  because of timing.  Last year, I discovered a vendor who offered a multitude of drywall accessories and I started using them in a certain way. I found myself to be the only builder using this, or so the home shoppers would tell me. This year, the supplier of these drywall products told me he had several other builders who are now inquiring and, yes, using the products in similar ways to my own. This technique was used in another builder’s home and I bet by next year, many more buildes will be using this.

     A few weeks ago, I talked to my basement installer who told me that my basketball court home in the 2004 Parade was the first of what would be many more, for many other builders. They claimed that before that Parade, they had never done a basketball court in any basement.

     So,…what does my headline about being bored creatively have to do with any of these things? I am not sure exactly why, but when someone comes to me asking to use something I have used so many times before, I am always happy to do it. After all, I may have become creatively bored of the product, but that client may have just seen it for the first time or might have simply always wanted it. I am in the business of fulfilling people’s home building dreams. Not building monuments to my tastes or desires.

     Even so, if I am building a new model for Miracle, I want to always try to show things folks have never seen before. At this year’s Parade, I can’t tell you how many folks would look at one of our latest inventions and either shrug their shoulders or comment on what an odd thing we had done. ” I don’t get it? Why would someone want such a thing?” is often the demeanor.  My answer is usually to the effect that I want to show something new that no one esle has done.   In a strange way, I wear such comments as badges of honor in the creative idea department.  My idea of room-to-room windows to let sunshine travel laterally through the home, my concept of walls that don;t touch the ceiling, or door-less rooms(check a recent blog on this), I have yet to see in any other home. Funny thing, even doing these kinds of things I find creatively boring  after doing them once or twice. The fun becomes trying to enhance and perfect these kind of WILD ideas.

    Last year, for example, I invented( at least , I think I did)  a camera rig which held 3 cameras and played them back on 3 large movie screens. The effect was a sort of wrap-around eye-max experience.  This year in the 2010 Parade edition, I tried perfecting the Tri-Screen(as I call it) concept by marrying it to music and lighting effects as well as introducing smells for some scenes! If I w0uld have just repeated what I had done before, I would have been creatively bored.

     I hope each of you who have seen an idea you really like, maybe think about how you too can expand upon the idea or give it your own creative twist. Anything can be improved and , unless you are the “play it safe” type, I encourage each home buyer to stretch their imaginations and overcome creative boredom. 

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite

Last week I attended a full day of seminars relating to a variety of Green Building and Energy Star topics. I must have gone to so many of them but I still enjoy hearing any new information that is hitting the market.

     One drawback to hearing and reading so many things about “Green”, and Energy Star building was nicely summed up by one speaker. This speaker makes his living consulting with home builders and home owners on how to achieve a suitable level of Greeness. I have to say that he and I think an awful lot alike.  part) green building is all well and good but it is MOSTLY a lot of feel-good gestures and advertising hype with little really being all that green in the end.

     Let’s take the compact florescent light bulb for a great example of what is being called “green-washing”(a new type of brain-washing being done by many builders or vendors). Folks commonly consider Compact florescent light bulbs to be a very green idea. They save energy, therefore the consumer is lulled into believing they are somehow doing their little part of saving the world while also saving energy, and saving money in the long run. On the surface, compact bulbs sound like a wonderful idea and it sure makes you feel so good when you buy them, doesn’t it?

    Consider the flip side of these bulbs and you may never want one in your home or in your plans to save the World either. When these bulbs burn out, you are supposed to take them to a qualified re-cyler to properly dispose of these bulbs. You see, these bulbs all have two quite dangerous things inside the bulbs that could permanently harm(or worse) an infant or a pet if broken on a carpeted floor or not disposed of correctly. First, let’s admit that it is highly unlikely that most users today are making the extra effort to find and then hand-over their bulbs to that elusive certified bulb disposer. Since all such bulbs contain lead in their circuit board connections, if you do not take your bulbs to a proper re-cycler, and instead put them into the garbage, you are putting harmful lead into places where lead should not be placed. You could very well be harming the Earth in your improper disposal.

    Second(and more important), if you should accidentally drop and break these bulbs onto any carpeted area, the manufacturers only remedy is to remove and replace the carpet. Oh, and you had also better take that old contaminated carpet to a proper re-cycling or disposal service. You see, the big thing here is that every such bulb has mercury in it and this toxic ingredient can not be suitably cleaned out of any carpet. A small infant or pet who come in contact with the contaminated area may become poisoned!

    With-in 2 years, the only light bulbs you will be able to purchase are these Fluorescent compact bulbs. The advice of the seminar expert, buy a truckload of the regular bulbs before they become extinct. That solution sounds highly impractical. There is no real good answer.

    We have all become “green-washed” into believing that we are saving the world when we use compact fluorescent bulbs. We have also become “green-washed into believing that building a home of Insulated Concrete forms are a better, greener, more energy wise alternative to conventional building methods. We think that bamboo is a greener wood to use for flooring.  We all think solar panels and solar energy are the way to go(see an earlier post of mine on this subject). “pop-POP-pop” those bubbles are just as easy to pop as the florescent bulb dilemma, and the speaker gave examples of how those items could all be problematic as well.

     If anyone would like to get any more detail or contact information for this speaker, I would be happy to share them with you.  He ended his seminar by saying “If everything is Green, then nothing is green”. He was referring to a whole other subject of everyone hopping on the bandwagon of touting why their product or service is green. I can not make it through a page of my Builder Magazine without seeing an ad for a product and , sure-enough, it is hard to find any product of any kind that does not claim to be green. In most cases these green products are the same, unchanged items which builders have been using for decades, only the sales jargon has changed.

    So, how does the truly energy conscious consumer really build a green or energy friendly home? The same way they always have. Insulate it very well, build efficiently, build a smaller home(less use of the World’s resources in smaller homes than in large ones, less money to heat/cool smaller homes), use energy efficient systems that have pay-back cycles less than 7 years, and avoid untested  new-fangled ideas until they have a proven track record.

      Until we blog again,

     Blessings,

     Tom Hignite