Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 1, 1990 TAG: 9006020443
SECTION: SMITH MOUNTAIN TIMES PAGE: SM-6 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY HOMES EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The quiet island cove near where Gills Creek runs into the Blackwater River was an ideal spot for anchoring a sailboat for a day, or a night, in the lake's pre-development days. Now Hamlett is building a house on one lot and plans to build on a second lot, both of which provided beaches for boaters.
He said he intends to take full advantage of the natural beaches that front the Contentment Island properties by adding protective drainage walls and white sand.
The building project represents a change in lifestyle for 30-year-old Burgess Hamlett III, who left an office job with the family company, Bassett-Walker in Henry County, to stomp around the red clay of a Franklin county construction site.
"I had too much entrepreneur in me. I was surpressing it," said Hamlett. He is an engineering graduate of East Tennessee State and has an MBA from Duke.
The house design was done by Hutch Johnson of Durham, N.C. Hamlett's architect-wife, Virginia Walker Hamlett, did the working drawings. She and Johnson formerly worked together. Virginia Hamlett is a free-lance architect who specializes in additions and renovations.
The cedar and glass structure with cedar shake roof will have 2,600 square feet of heated area, a 500-square-foot garage and 900 square feet of decking. It carries a price tag of $495,000.
The house has such touches as copper guttering, pickled birch cabinetry, shelving, cabinets and windows in the garage, a fireplace with a built-in wood bin and a raised deck tub alongside a wall of windows in the master suite. All rooms in the house have a view of the lake.
The Martinsville native with his company, Hamlett Development Corp., is one of the latest entrants in the speculative home-building business at the lake. And while speculative building has languished in some parts of the country and in some price ranges, Hamlett doesn't see it as risky at all in the price range that he's building in.
Fellow Martinsville builder Randy Wells echoes that belief.
Wells, who is president of Eastgate Development Corp., is nine months into his first speculative venture at the lake with a $437,500 house in The Water's Edge.
Wells said he considered the Water's Edge Market "a very safe market to build in.
"I think we're going to see a lot of people, retirees as well as younger couples, moving to the lake for its very clean atmosphere as long as they can commute within an hour to their workplace," he said.
"The only thing missing at the lake is the convenience of shopping centers; that's still 30 minutes away."
Wells' company has been in business since the 1950s. It specializes in speculative homes of traditional design in the mid-$300,000 to $400,000 range. Wells' lake project is a 3,890-square-foot contemporary style, however, that includes a garage that will accommodate a boat. It's on a waterfront lot that overlooks the 15th hole and 16th tee on the golf course, he said.
Wells believes there are a lot of people who would be doing speculative building at the lake except that the "banking community is a bit hesitant on any speculative building now.
"They are conservative and it takes a lot of convincing . . . ," Wells said.
Wells works on a 12-month schedule to build and sell a house. He said that time frame is necessary because of the schedule of material deliveries.
He started the one in The Water's Edge Sept. 1, and he said he anticipates getting a sales contract on it by Father's Day, which will put him ahead of schedule.
The 12-month schedule for a house building project is about standard, according to a family that has been doing speculative building on the lake since 1975.
What's different these days, are prices, said E. Derrick Plyler, owner of Town & Lake Realty Inc. of Union Hall.
When Plyler followed his father, Earl C. Plyler, into the development and building business, they were putting up speculative lake houses for $45,000 to $50,000. The ones they have on the market currently are $199,000 and $299,000.
Derrick Plyler said he and his father have built an average of three houses a year and it has remained about standard that it takes an average of five months to sell a house once it is completed.
The slowest period Plyler remembers was 1982, when lots were selling well, but houses weren't. He said that now is reversing and that people are finding they can pick up a house and a lot for a better deal than they can get a lot.
"We thought the year was going to be terrible until a month ago and now it's great. We've got a lot of people out looking," Plyler said. He concentrates in the Penhook-Union Hall area and the bulk of his clients are coming from the North Carolina Triad area, he said.
by CNB