Aug. 18, 2006 - Martha Stewart KB Home Designs Popular at Twin Lakes

People who follow Martha Stewart's lead on decorating, cooking, gardening and entertaining now have a new option -- with four walls and a roof.

KB Home, one of the nation's largest home builders, created a joint venture with Martha Stewart for a line of houses carrying her name that KB Homes has built and marketed. KB began selling the Martha Stewart designed homes in early 2006 in a development called Twin Lakes in Cary, N.C., a fast-growing, middle-market suburb of Raleigh.

KB Home's Katonah house is inspired by her own house in Bedford, N.Y. (above). Katonah will have up to six bedrooms and four baths.

KB Home and Martha Stewart Living initially plan to build 650 houses, which will come in many different variations. The homes, which KB says are "inspired" by three of Ms. Stewart's own houses in New York and Maine, have names such as "Katonah" and "Lily Pond."

The houses are meant to evoke the bucolic splendor of prosperous suburbia, though Ms. Stewart's homes typically sit on huge tracts of land and are worth millions of dollars. Still, one version of a "Martha" KB home has an exterior that resembles the outside of Ms. Stewart's Bedford, N.Y., estate, and it comes with up to six bedrooms and a third floor, which is common in older, affluent communities on the East Coast. Other design characteristics include high ceilings and particularly large laundry rooms and closets.

Unlike most KB Homes, which are typically one- or two-story structures with simple features, the "Martha" homes have as many as 4,100 square feet, offer high-end features and range in price from just over $200,000 to about $450,000. Most standard KB homes in Cary cost quite a bit less.

Ms. Stewart's houses have played a leading role in many of her projects. A line of furniture is modeled after the decor at Turkey Hill, her restored 1805 Colonial in Westport, Conn. A new color in her signature paints line is called Bedford Gray, after the 153-acre suburban New York estate she purchased for $15 million in 2000. (She lived at the Bedford spread during five months of house arrest following her stint in prison last winter.) Photo shoots for her five magazines are sometimes staged at her other properties, which include a 12-bedroom summer home in Seal Harbor, Maine, known as Skylands.

Despite fast growth, mass marketing is relatively new in the home-building industry. But KB has taken branding and marketing a step further than most other builders. A few years ago, it worked with the "Live With Regis and Kelly" show to give away a house valued at up to $250,000. It gave away another house on ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." "Marketing is definitely their strong suit," says Greg Gieber, an analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc.

So it was a fortuitous encounter last July when the queen of homemaking was introduced to KB Chief Executive Bruce Karatz and took a tour of a KB new-home development in Raleigh. Ms. Stewart made some "smart comments" about design changes to improve the homes' function, Mr. Karatz says. For example, she marked up several sets of blueprints with suggestions for traffic flow, air conditioning and even the best place to locate a cutting block in the kitchen..

In addition to getting a chance to branch into a lucrative new business, Martha Stewart Living hopes to use the partnership to boost sales of its furnishings and household products. The model homes will be stocked with Ms. Stewart's products -- everything from dish towels to sofas -- and buyers will be able to buy extras such as Martha Stewart-endorsed faucets for the kitchen sink and flower pots for the front porch.  

Martha Stewart’s partnership with KB Home attracted 3,400 interested consumers during its opening weekend and sold out its first 100-home phase in Cary, N.C., within a week.  If you would like further information on availability of KB Homes at Twin Lakes please feel free to send me an email at Tracy@TracySantrock.com and I will contact you with more details.

Feb. 4, 2008 - RE: Martha Stewart KB Home Designs Popular at Twin Lakes

Homes are going up in value in NC! Raleigh, Cary, Charlotte, and other cities are doing pretty good with home values!

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