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Dream Home Blues

Tribune photo by Karen Haymon Long

The "retreat" or "sanctuary" room in the HGTV Dream Home is painted tangerine with wide white stripes. Its daybed is nestled next to a window in the front of the house.

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By KAREN HAYMON LONG, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 22, 2008

ISLAMORADA - You're about as likely to win the Florida Lotto as you are to win HGTV's Dream Home here in the Keys. But odds don't dampen desires.

Hundreds of hopefuls have toured the three-story, electric blue Key West-style house on Florida Bay in the heart of Islamorada, a sun-splashed key an hour and a half from Miami.

As with all dreams, everybody interprets this one their own way.

Retired teacher Jane Tomlinson, a volunteer tour guide at the house, loves everything about it and says if she wins it, she'll make it a bed-and-breakfast inn - if zoning allows. (It probably won't, she says.) Federal income tax, if she wins, would run $700,000 or more. But she says she would find a creative mortgage broker to help her out.

William and Mary-Teresa Enk, who own a condo in neighboring Key Largo, don't want the 3,500-square-foot house. They toured it just to get furnishing ideas for their own place.

But their daughter, Sarah Baumstark, mother of four boys and a stepdaughter, envisions herself living here with her family. She registered to win every day after the sweepstakes began online Jan. 1. She can't wait for the winner to be announced March 16 during a live special on HGTV.

She says she and her family would use it as a vacation retreat, so they can spend more time with her parents.

But not all visitors are so enthralled. Some are surprised the house will be surrounded by seven others in a 2-acre development called The Shore at Islamorada. Some also question the wisdom of putting the master bedroom on the third floor - not the most convenient to older people, the most likely to afford to keep the home.

That may be a long shot, too.

Of the 12 homes given away by HGTV in its popular annual promotion, only two winners lived in their dream prize. One used her Beaufort, S.C., house for eight years as a summer vacation home. A man lived in the Tyler, Texas, home he won for a year and a half before selling it.

The Islamorada house, a 10-minute walk to the Atlantic, is priced at $2.2 million. That includes all furniture, which is by Ethan Allen; a silver 2008 GMC Yukon Hybrid SUV; fishing equipment; kitchen appliances; and decor, some by local artists.

Property taxes will cost about $1,650 a month, or $20,000 a year. Home, flood, hurricane and wind insurance are a whole other story. How much that will cost is anyone's guess.

But the house has won the hearts of legions of HGTV viewers who have tuned in to see it and have gone online at www.hgtv.com for a virtual tour. Fans could register to win it once a day through this past Tuesday. Last year, the contest logged 41.4 million registrations, and it's on track to do the same this year, according to a HGTV spokeswoman.

Surprising Color Schemes

The Islamorada home offers some colorful surprises. The guest room is pea-soup green, not something some people would want to live with. Another room, billed as a sanctuary for reading (it has no closet) is tangerine orange with wide white stripes. Orange, even with the creamsicle effect, just isn't all that soothing.

The glass tile on the main kitchen wall is dark brown. Some visitors muse that seafoam may have been a better choice in a seaside home.

The rooms and closets aren't that big either, but then, the house is probably going to be a vacation getaway for whoever wins it - or buys it from the winner.

One tour guide says she sees a corporation buying all eight houses and using them as a retreat. There would certainly be plenty for employees to bond around: A pool is planned for the grassy area between the Dream House and the bay, and a 160-foot boat dock and eight boat slips will be built over the bay on another acre that developer Ned Johnson owns. He also promises a 275-foot white sandy beach.

The location is another matter. Not many people can afford to maintain a $2.2 million waterfront home without working. And Islamorada is no business mecca. There isn't much call for physicians or lawyers, either.

The key has more bars and boats than anything else, and some aren't all that fancy.

They'll Find A Way, Visitors Say

But some of the visitors taking tours that continue through March 2 say they would find a way to keep the house.

Walking through the grassy back yard, Baumstark informs her parents: "My pool will be here."

Her parents, obligingly, go along with her dreams.

"We love it. I like the island style," says her mom, Mary-Teresa Enk. "All the tall windows and high ceilings keep it light and airy."

She also likes the groupings of six chairs in front of a flat-screen TV in the room HGTV calls the "Tropical Media Room."

Men gravitate to the lemon yellow "Fishing Room," tucked next to the one-car garage holding the prize Yukon. A map of the Islamorada area hangs on a wall next to rods. A tackle box, fly fishing basket, bait bucket, reels, flies and other tackle are neatly stacked on shelves. The winner gets to keep it all.

Many visitors, especially hurricane-weary Floridians, seem interested in learning that the house has a metal roof tied to the foundation, an emergency generator and hurricane-strength windows. (It also has security and music systems.)

Green-advocates appreciate the low-flow toilets and energy-efficient appliances and lighting.

Others are mainly interested in colors and decor.

The children's room - on the first floor - is royal blue and decorated with white cottage furniture, seashells and swatches of brown-and-white striped fabric hanging from the wall behind each twin bed.

The penthouse master bedroom is painted the most attractive color, aquamarine. To continue the nautical theme, seashells are perched on plate hangers over doorways.

"The master bath has more square footage than the master bedroom because of the big walk-in closet," Jane Tomlinson, the tour guide, tells visitors.

The bath also has a roomy shower and oversize tub and lots of floor space between his-and-her sinks.

'Wouldn't This Be Wonderful'

A coffee bar, complete with a small stainless-steel sink, is tucked into the stair landing leading to the master bedroom.

One woman gasps when she sees it.

"Coffee," she says aloud to herself. "Wouldn't this be delightful?"

That's the treat of going through the house - imagining how pleasant it would be to have all these amenities: dark brown hardwood floors; tall, oversized windows, some looking out toward turquoise seas; and a brushed stainless-steel Sub Zero refrigerator, even if it is hiding in a not-so-very-big pantry.

One little girl - her eyes wide admiring the furnishings in the master bedroom - asks her mom if they can live here.

"No, you have to go to college," her mother answers to the knowing smiles of other visitors.

Tomlinson, who lives in a two-bedroom, one-bath stilt house in nearby Tavernier, says she has registered to win every day since Jan. 1.

"In every room, the light is just perfect," she says. "They've really taken advantage of the light. It's very soothing."

She isn't too worried about getting insurance for the house if she wins it.

"You can get insurance. You just have to pay for it," she says in the master bedroom overlooking the water. "That's what you have to do to live in paradise - and in a hurricane and flood zone."

HGTV'S ISLAMORADA DREAM HOME

Registration to win the Dream Home has ended, but tours continue through March 2. HGTV will announce the winner at 9 p.m. March 16.

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Sunday. The house closes at 6.

ADMISSION: $20 for ages 5 and older; children 4 and younger are admitted free but must be carried by an adult. Buy tickets at The Rain Barrel Artist Village of Islamorada, on U.S. 1 at Mile Marker 86.7, then walk a half-block to the Dream House. Tour proceeds benefit the Florida Keys Children's Shelter.

INFORMATION: www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dream_home. To learn more about The Shore at Islamorada, go to www.theshoreislamorada.com/, or call 1-888-810-6912.

Reporter Karen Haymon Long can be reached at (813) 259-7618 or klong@tampatrib.com.

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