ONLINE EXCLUSIVELIFE'S A BEACH
By the Sea
St. Joe's WaterSound project reflects this developer's penchant for strong design and environmental preservation.
Northwest Florida's Panhandle hasn't been one of the Sunshine State's strongest magnets for homebuyers or builders, despite its breathtaking coastline and crystal-clear waters. But that hasn't stopped St. Joe, the Jacksonville, Fla.-based developer that, as of June, controlled 739,000 acres of land in that region. For the past several years, St. Joe has been developing communities distinguished by their attention to architectural detail. These include The Town of WaterSound, near Panama City, which Joe started in 2001. The first two communities within that town are nestled along the Gulf of Mexico. And now St. Joe is looking to transport the beach experience three miles inland to WaterSound's third community, which it started building earlier this year. "We always want to be positioned to provide connectivity to the Gulf," says Tom Dodson, vice president of St. Joe's western division.
The master plan for the 1,400-acre inland component, situated between the Intercoastal Waterway and Lake Powell, calls for a build-out of 999 single-family homes and 256 attached residences, interconnected by a pedestrian road system and ensconced within large open areas of natural habitat, parks and lakes. Many of the homes being built in this phase will be more affordable than some of Joe's over-the-top beachfront properties (like its mammoth Gatehouse at WaterSound Beach). This phase also includes the developer's first modular product. In July, Joe forged a strategic alliance with Haven Custom Homes, a Linthicum, Md.-based manufacturer known for producing high-quality houses, to provide modular units to several of the developer's communities. Since disbanding its homebuilding operations last year, Joe has been striking relationships with a number of builders to be able to offer a wide range of homes. "We're much better at creating special places," explains Dodson.
What attracted Joe to Haven was the 3,600-square-foot Idea House that Haven built for Southern Living magazine on WaterSound's premises. That house drew more than 25,000 visitors while it was open to the public from June 16 and September 30. Tom Watson even left Southern Living to become Haven's vice president of its preferred builder program because he was "so excited" about the builder-developer alliance. "St. Joe recognizes the benefits of building in a controlled-climate factory environment," says John Ragland, Haven's executive vice president of acquisitions and marketing, whose company has since built three other homes for Joe. The developer's interest in modular construction is also practical, given the relative shortage of skilled homebuilding labor on the Panhandle, notes John Kirk, a partner with Cooper Robertson & Partners, a New York-based architect firm that has worked with Joe on several other projects.
David Weekley Homes is one of three builders active at WaterSound, located on Florida's Northwest Panhandle, which its developer, St. Joe Co., has incorporated into its natural surroundings of sea, wetland, and parks. This rendering shows one of Weekley's homes, which range from 1,800 to 3,400 square feet and from $309,000 to the low $500,000s.
Credit: David Weekley Homes
Haven assembled its Southern Living home on WaterSound's premises, and Huff Homes, a Niceville, Fla.-based stick-built builder that is also active in WaterSound, put the finishing touches on that house. Buyers can also purchase unfinished lots at WaterSound (for between $150,000 and $200,000), and that, says Ragland, has opened Haven's eyes for the first time to the retail side of this business. It is working with Joe to enter several northwest Florida communities through a new turnkey homebuilding division that will market directly to the consumer. Haven might extend this to other markets like South Carolina, where Haven operates one of its two plants (the other being in State College, Pa.).
Stickler for detail
At first glance, WaterSound's houses seem like an odd amalgam of styles. The developer's "fact sheet" for the community describes, in architect-speak, the design as a "response to the early maritime villages of Nantucket - a merging of distinctive coastal shingled homes with Floridian vernacular building styles." Translation: New England Coastal that's been "Southernized," says Dodson, with roomier walk-in closets, master downs, and big family areas. Towers grace the roofscape, and awnings shade the windows. Joe's challenge was scaling that concept for the more affordable inland neighborhood without diluting its architectural integrity.
St. Joe has long had a reputation for being an architect's developer. "It's pretty sophisticated, from a design standpoint," says Jeff Dungan, president of Dungan Nequette Architects in Birmingham, Ala., which has worked on three of Joe's communities, including the initial phases of WaterSound. He says that Joe's own designers often have strong opinions about what they want, which can lead to debates "that go around the block a few times to get an answer." But Dungan's experience has been that the process improves in the product.
Steve Mein, president of David Weekley Homes' division in Panama City, one of St. Joe's builders in the inland neighborhood, initially found the architectural rigor that the developer imposes for its exteriors daunting. "There's detail on every rafter tail, and the roofs are not simple. There are also a lot of protrusions, so the homes are not all that cost-efficient to build." Still, Weekley has worked with Joe on numerous projects including its vaunted Celebration and Victoria Park, and was eager to make inroads into Northwest Florida, where there's not much big-builder competition. At WaterSound, Mein says Weekley wasn't willing to sacrifice the "signature" interior design, which emphasizes "flow and liveability." But he's found Joe to be an empathetic and amenable partner.
Weekley is building 1,800-square-foot homes on 50-foot lots, and 3,400-square-foot homes on 65-foot lots whose prices range from $309,000 to the low $500s. Dodson says that Haven's homes will range from 2,200 to 3,200 square feet and from the low $500s to the mid $800s; Huff's homes will fall within 2,000 and 2,800 square feet, and between $435,000 and $550,000. (The cost of the land adds anywhere from $150,000 to $300,000 to the prices.) The amenities completed this summer include a post office, pro shop, and fitness center. The second phase of the inland community will include an outdoor pool and park, and the third a "winter garden" with an indoor pool. Dodson says Joe hadn't determined which homebuilders it would bring on for subsequent phases, although Dodson says its multifamily component is likely to surround a proposed town center.
Natural fit
Residents of WaterSound can become members of Camp Creek golf club, the link between the inland and coastal communities, and have access to WaterSound's Beach Club. But the real selling feature of WaterSound's latest community is how the homes and amenities are integrated into the natural environment, to create what one architect calls a "bucolic" setting. One enters the community through an area where Joe has 500,000 square feet of entitlements for commercial development, which when completed will be separated from the residential component by about a mile and a half of natural environment.
"This development has fantastic natural features," says Doug Wright, a principal with Hart/Howerton & Associates, a New York-based architect firm that was one of WaterSound's master-plan designers. These features include wetlands, lakes, and "subtle changes in grade and sloping," says Wright. Many of the homes are positioned so their porches look out onto natural habitats or parks. Wright says the roads were laid out "so that people would always have a view of at least one element of the town; it's all knitted together."
WaterSound will also soon be "knitted," via Highway 98, to the new $330 million Panama City-Bay County airport, whose construction begins next year on 4,000 acres of land that St. Joe donated.