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It Takes Solid Relationships to Build the New American Home
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The New American Home — from concrete slab to picture perfect in nine months.
Photo by James F. Wilson |
How do you take a 10,000-plus square-foot custom home from concrete slab to picture perfect in nine months?
Magic, maybe. Or help from above. Both probably are needed.
But Alex Hannigan, president of Hannigan Homes and the builder of The New American Home at 2006 International Builders’ Show, sums up his down-to-earth secret to pulling off the transformation in just one word ― relationships.
“I am a relationship builder,” Hannigan, a member of NAHB’s Custom Home Builders Committee, says. “The only reason we were able go get it done so quickly is because of the relationships we have cultivated with our subcontractors.”
Relationships, he says, helped him overcome the numerous obstacles, requirements and pressures that came with building this year’s New American Home on the shores of Lake Burden in southwest Orange County, Fla.
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Putting it all together. The New American Home construction team, from left, Tom Davis, production manager, Hannigan Homes, Inc.; John Orgren, R.A., regional design manager, WCI Architecture & Land Planning, Inc.; Alex Hannigan, president, Hannigan Homes, Inc.; and John Broniek, IBACOS Consortium, Build America Program. |
The Granddaddy of All Show Homes
Relationships are vital, Hannigan says, because The New American Home is a “committee-build,” which is very different kind of build than building a home, custom or otherwise, by yourself. Throw in the fact that this home is “the granddaddy of all show homes,” and you get an idea of what Hannigan was up against.
“It’s sort of like all the other show homes combined — and on steroids,” Hannigan says.
Not only does The New American Home have to wow the thousands upon thousands of visitors who walk through its doors, Hannigan says, there’s also the added pressure of making sure that all the products provided by the National Council of the Housing Industry ― The Supplier 100 of NAHB are demonstrated appropriately. After all, The New American Home is not just a model for new home design and construction techniques; it is also an opportunity for NCHI vendors, who sponsor the home, to show off their state-of-the-art products in action.
Of course, building the home under such a short production schedule required Hannigan’s contractors to “ramp up quickly” to install the cutting-edge products correctly, oftentimes while working under conditions that were less than ideal.
A Muddy Road to Hoe
To get the construction started quickly, Hannigan said he sought and was issued a model permit prior to the subdivision being completed. That bought him additional time, but it also meant that he had to begin construction early, before the community was platted, so roads, water and power were in short supply.
“We were out prairie building, if you will,” Hannigan says. “We started construction with a water pump and a filter on the end of a suction outlet in the lake for laying our block walls.
“We had to bring in a rental potable water truck to fill our plumbing pipes for our plumbing underground inspection, and for drywall subs and painters to clean their equipment.” Hannigan continues. “We brought in gas-powered generators for our framing and used them until mid-June.”
Where We’re Building, We Can’t Rely on Roads
“We had no streets, and the trails we would follow to get back to the site were changing with each phase of the subdivision’s development. You could rarely go the same way today that you went yesterday,” Hannigan says.
Needless to say, Hannigan made friends with the development’s construction crews since he often had to ask them to bring over a front-end loader so they could extricate his subs from the mud.
But except for maybe a week in June when late Central Florida spring rains made the property totally inaccessible, “we were building seven days a week,” Hannigan says. “We put Tom Davis, our project manager, on this home and just kept him there.”
 Talk About Labor Intensive
To note that the build was labor intensive is a gross understatement. Forty to 50 crew members working in the house was not unusual, Hannigan says. At times, there were eight trim carpenters, eight painters, HVAC technicians, electricians and ceramic installers all working on the house at one time.
A trim carpenter even lived in a trailer onsite, which saved him and the project an hour setting up and another hour breaking down his equipment each day. “It was that intense,” Hannigan says.
Having workers onsite also helped with security concerns. “As the home became more and more finished, we had more and more onsite that could be damaged or stolen if someone had a mind to do that,” Hannigan adds.
One out-of-the-ordinary cost included renting high-reach equipment for nine months. The equipment was needed to unload delivery trucks that couldn’t or wouldn’t go to the construction site. Another was the added expense of a 2,000-foot-long, two-inch water line to a metered fire hydrant for temporary final water use.
Otherwise, Hannigan says, the building process was “basically the same” as for any custom home project.
Everything You Ever Learned
Planning, execution, follow up, quality control, communications, marketing and advertising are all put to the test with the New American Home. “It is probably an intense application of everything you ever learned in college,” Hannigan says. “I am extremely grateful to NAHB for this opportunity. For a custom home builder it doesn’t get any better than this project.”
The home’s rapid transformation made each day on the job exciting, Hannigan says. It took about four months to finish the home once the drywall was up. Under normal circumstances, he explains, finishing a comparable home would have taken more than a year.
Planning for the 2006 home was a long process. “It takes awhile; it’s not something you do overnight,” Hannigan says. It began with his vision for an “all about me” home on lakefront property geared toward retiring baby boomers or those nearing retirement. Four architects took up the challenge in a design competition.
The final design was chosen by the NCHI members.
Aging in Place, Green Building
Although its exterior of Dryvit, Hardi Board siding and Monier Madera roof tile are at home in Central Florida, The New American Home is meant to be a real-world laboratory demonstrating concepts, materials, designs and construction techniques that can be replicated — in whole or in part — in housing built any place and in any price range.
So the design pays heed not only to the luxuries of a retirement dream home but also to practical aging-in-place features such as wide doors, fewer obstructions, an elevator and a place for live-in help when the time comes.
“It’s timely. There’s an ever-expanding group of baby boomers and that is a market that we all need to address, for sure,” Hannigan says. While the home was not designed to be strictly compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), The New American Home is ADA friendly and could be fully converted without great cost, Hannigan says.
The home also includes green-build features “because that is a direction people are going to be going,” Hannigan says. “That is a trend that is here to stay and it’s going to grow by leaps and bounds.”
A Tip for Future New American Home Builders
Whether you are considering building the next New American Home or your next client’s home, Hannigan urges the same bit of advice for either project — start early, design early and get it launched early.
“Probably the biggest thing is find out who your contacts are early and being sure that they have a full list of everything that you need," Hannigan points out.
“Give yourself enough time to plan every aspect of it, well before the time that you’re dealing with it,” he says.
Tour Hours and Bus Schedule
Registered attendees at the 2006 International Builders’ Show can tour The New American Home during exhibit hours via free shuttle buses (ticket required) departing every half hour from the Orange County Convention Center. Shuttle bus tickets may be picked up at the TNAH booth, which is open during show hours and located in “Transportation Central” of the C Hall Lobby, West Building.
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Date |
Show Home Hours |
Depart Convention Center |
Depart Show Home |
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Wednesday, Jan. 11 |
9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. |
10:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
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Thursday, Jan. 12 |
9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. |
10:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
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Friday, Jan. 13 |
9:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
9:00 a.m.-3:30 p.m. |
10:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m. |
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Saturday, Jan. 14 |
9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. |
8:30-11:30 a.m. |
10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. |
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