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Working from home at the height of the pandemic, in a cramped downtown apartment, eventually wore on the nerves of newlyweds Deepak Lodhia and Chandni Rama.
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With no space, no privacy and no ability to undertake renovations in their rented condo, the couple had sufficient ammunition to start house hunting.
“We were thinking either the northwest, where our friends are, or in Chestermere,” says Lodhia, a commercial banker who has family in the city east of Calgary. “My sisters are there. My parents are there. It was an automatic contender.”
The couple, in their early 30s, contracted Green Cedar Homes to build their 2,432-square-foot custom home in Waterford, a community in the southwest corner of Chestermere. The builder is a familiar one in the Chestermere/Langdon area and came highly recommended by one of Lodhia’s sisters who had previously built with Green Cedar.
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“We started our search in 2020. Both of us had a certain esthetic that we had in mind of what our home was going to look like. We lean towards a more contemporary modern look,” he says.
They considered other new communities in Chestermere but found the architectural styles prescribed in Waterford, a Douglas Developments community, called for that West Coast contemporary look they longed for.
Several Green Cedar floor plans offered the modern elevation and customizable floor plans they wanted, too.
“We found we could have a contemporary, inner-city style of home, but in the suburbs. How can you go wrong with that combination,” he says.
Their home, a two-storey front-drive floor plan, is a hybrid of two different models that started with the Intrigue. Green Cedar worked with Lodhia and Rama to create a space that would flow just the way they wanted it to.
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The main floor features an enclosed flex room/office, a family room, dining room and a large kitchen.
The home has an open-to-above feature, oversized windows and customized transom windows on the interior walls which bring an inordinate amount of light into the main floor.
The second floor has three large bedrooms, upstairs laundry and a primary bedroom with custom tray ceilings and an ensuite with dual sinks and a large soaker tub.
The couple finished with basement with a fourth bedroom/home gym.
Green Cedar’s Intrigue model starts at $565,000 plus lot and GST.
“It took about a year and a half to build. With supply issues and everything that’s going on right now, I think anyone getting into a home needs to exercise a little bit of patience,” Lodhia says.
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Building in Waterford brought another unexpected perk — a 45-foot-wide lot, something he and Rama felt they’d never be able to find, or afford, in Calgary. They have an oversized double garage while many of their neighbours have triple-car garages. Both believe they’re not sacrificing anything by moving outside of the city.
“It’s not as far as people think. It’s a 10-minute drive east, which is actually closer that the farther reaches of the northwest,” Lodhia says.
Terrence Skoreyko, Green Cedar sales and marketing manager, says lots in Waterford start at $261,500 with home prices starting in the low $500,000s. The builder’s floor plans range in size from 1,474 square feet to 3,681 square feet and, like Lodhia’s and Rama’s personalized version of the Intrigue, any home can be tailored to the customer’s requirements.
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“Customers love our thoughtful suggestions while we work to maintain the home’s design and function. We build homes like they are our own,” Skoreyko says.
Green Cedar also builds in Kinniburgh South and South Shore in Chestermere and in The Bridges of Langdon. Coming soon is Elevations, a new product line in Heritage Hills and Greystone in Cochrane.
Green Cedar is one of four builders in Waterford along with Artistique Homes, Douglas Homes and Devine Custom Homes.
Waterford has three future school sites, three ponds, eight parks and is linked to regional pathways along Chestermere’s Western Headworks Canal. There will also be two neighbourhood shopping centres.
Chestermere began as a summer village on man-made Chestermere Lake before becoming a commuter town and a city within its own right and has held true to its recreational roots. With a population of more than 25,000, Chestermere shares its western boundary with the City of Calgary and is connected via Calgary Transit.
THE DETAILS
COMMUNITY: Waterford in Chestermere
DEVELOPER: Douglas Developments
BUILDER: Green Cedar Homes
HOME: The Intrigue front-drive two-storey
SIZE: 2,432 square feet, three-bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, main floor office
PRICE: From $565,000 plus lot and GST
INFORMATION: greencedarhomes.ca, liveinwaterford.com