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Builder offers home within home

Lennar will hold open house at Next Gen model aimed at multi-generational families

By Courtney Sherwood
Published: November 14, 2014, 12:00am
2 Photos
Lennar's NextGen home is billed as a home within a home. It offers multi-generational living in the form of private living quarters for two families.
Lennar's NextGen home is billed as a home within a home. It offers multi-generational living in the form of private living quarters for two families. The national homebuilder is opening this model home Saturday in Vancouver's Norwegian Hollow subdivision. Photo Gallery

o What: Lennar’s “NextGen” home, designed for multi-generational families. The model on display sells for $382,000. Other prices and floor plans are offered.

o When: Model home is open for viewing from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through the winter.

o Where: Norwegian Hollow subdivision, 10214 N.E. 130th Ave., Vancouver

o Web: www.lennar.com/New-Homes/Washington/Vancouver

One of Clark County’s newest major homebuilders is introducing a new type of home to the local housing market, one that aims to keep extended families together while giving them space to be apart.

o What: Lennar's "NextGen" home, designed for multi-generational families. The model on display sells for $382,000. Other prices and floor plans are offered.

o When: Model home is open for viewing from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily through the winter.

o Where: Norwegian Hollow subdivision, 10214 N.E. 130th Ave., Vancouver

o Web: www.lennar.com/New-Homes/Washington/Vancouver

Florida-based Lennar Homes will open its “Next Gen” model home, which is already offered in some cities, beginning Saturday at its Norwegian Hollow subdivision, 10214 N.E. 130th Ave., Vancouver.

Next Gen refers to two generational shifts in how families are choosing to live together, says Chris Ingraham, vice president of sales and marketing with Lennar Homes in Vancouver. Middle-aged adults are increasingly inviting their baby boomer parents to move in, while the parents of young adults are seeing their college graduates come back home for a few years before they set up independently.

Between these two trends, the number of people living in multi-generational households in the U.S. has doubled since 1980, to 57 million, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.

Lennar’s Next Gen homes, which the company started building three years ago in California, attempt to make it easy for family members to live under one roof without stepping on one others’ toes, by offering separate living spaces, kitchens, bathrooms and entryways. The homes can range in size from about 2,000 to 3,400 square feet of living space, with around 700 square feet typically set aside for the smaller home-within-a-home, Ingraham said.

In Portland, city land-use changes have prompted a surge in construction of accessory dwelling units — sometimes known as “grannie pods,” which are small stand-alone buildings in a back or side yard. Last year, 212 of these mini-houses were built within the city, according to the Portland Business Journal.

But in Clark County, people are looking to share space in a single building, said Christine Evoniuk, owner of Vancouver-based Trusted Transitions NW. Evoniuk specializes in helping families remodel and redesign existing homes to help baby boomers remain independent. She also consults with clients of Vancouver-based Urban Homes NW, providing advice on how to design new multi-generational house construction.

“It’s so hard to make a house work for you after the fact, so we have to be ahead of the game, to design for the family that will live there,” she said. “Remodeling is more expensive and you end up with a house that feels stitched together. By planning ahead, you can fit the house to the person instead of fitting the person to the house.”

While Evoniuk believes demand for multi-generational design is climbing — she has been contacted by several local builders and may expand the line-up of developers she works with — Ingraham said he is still not sure how many of these homes Lennar will sell in Clark County.

“Across the nation, in some of our divisions, these Next Gen homes are 10 percent or 15 percent of sales,” he said. “Every division is run locally, we make our decisions here. So we have to do our legwork to see how this product will work in this market.”

In some areas, Lennar’s multi-generational homes have largely been marketed to empty-nest parents who expect their adult kids to boomerang back home after college, Ingraham said. The company expects Clark County buyers to be more interested in having their elderly parents share the space, he added.

Lennar, one of the nation’s largest homebuilding companies, arrived in Southwest Washington after buying up swaths of land and partially complete developments during and shortly after the recession.

The company has built more than 150 houses here already, and lists 58 for sale at prices ranging from $261,400 in Ridgefield to $660,900 in Camas.

It quietly tested the local market for its first two Next Gen homes in 2013, when it built two without buyers lined up in its Lakeridge North Camas subdivision, and quickly sold both properties off, Ingraham said, adding: “People loved them.”

At the Norwegian Hollow subdivision, site of this weekend’s open house, he predicts that about 8 percent of the 81 planned houses will be “Next Gen,” with the remaining being more traditional homes. That could change slightly depending on what buyers ask for, and on constraints that come with fitting houses onto each parcel, Ingraham said. Next Gen homes also will be offered in other Lennar subdivisions.

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