28 i u m m e i (tie * 4 r&mw SuperModel Homes TM BY KEITH KRUMWIED E "We offer borne* ,uni lifestyles ... "' design options ... and thousands of deco- home will live as well as it looks."" The clothed m co-opted value sv stems that 1 rator selections." After selecting .1 home sales experience transforms a more or less construct visions ol the good life, free ON HIGHWAY 290, IN NORTHWEST HOUSTON, plan, buyers meet their designer to final typical suburban home into an "innova- from everyday struggles. superstores otter cvcryd.iv low prices tor i/i tuiislu s and fixtures and an assigned tive design" achieved through "incompa- Cities — as marketplaces, the tradi- everything needed to stock the average 1 1 1 a Personal Builder * who supervises con- rable choice" with "inspired service." " tional domain ol marketing — are now American home and fuel the average struction of their "custom" home. The The buyer is not just purchasing a house, literally constructed through marketing. American lifestyle. Wal-Mart, Home buyer can check construction status daily hut a perfectly crafted and carefully mar- Planning is dead. And not just in Depot, target, Academy Sports and via a personal, password-protected keted lifestyli I liuiston, which is notorious for its lack Outdoor, and others populate a big-box 1 lomebuyer web site. ot /oning, hut is frankly 110 better or landscape of high volumes and deep dis- In the build on Your I ot program, a Marketing as Planning worse than any other sprawling American counts, hi 1997, a new player entered the critical component of the New I lome Marketing is everything — and not just at metropolis. Notwithstanding the recent 1 1 big-box game. David Weekley Homes * 1 1 1 1 Center * , buyers can even choose to David Weeklev Homes * . It shapes both popularity ol lifestyle magazines — opened the David Weekley New Home 1 1 build their David Weekley * home any- our products and our relationships to Wiill/hiper'. Surface, Nest— that sell Center™, a 17,000-squarc-foot super- where in I louston. Weekley — the largest products. It effectively and efficiently visions ol jet-set urbanity in plush, scxed- store.1 This "one-sfop home shop'' homebiiilder in lex.is. and the second transforms our world through formulas up environs, the suburban dream and its turned the superstore concept inside out: largest in the U.S. — sells almost I ,()()<) that connect consumers and producers in attendant value structure still drives most It sold nor household goods hut the hous- homes per year in the city/ That volume complex socio-economic equations, deter- current marketing. Since World War 11, es themselves; not the small goods, hut creates an economy of scale that allows mining not only the style of individuals' the private, bucolic realm ol the single- the container. Weekley to compete across multiple sales lives but the appearance and performance family home set among like-minded 1 1 David Weekley * positions his home brackets.'' More important, it creates an of their collective environment — the city neighbors has symbolized comfort, suc- superstore to he, like its big-box neigh- economic position that allows the builder — as well. As everything is reduced to cess. ,u]A security 111 an otherwise unsta- bors, a category killer. The New Home to work on individual, scattered lots. The marketable product, it becomes increas- ble (anil presumably unsightly I world. 1 1 ( enter * capitalizes on hig-box innova- necessary economies ot scale, previously ingly difficult to distinguish any values not I hat suburban image, once limited to a tions, adding personal service to con- available only in large subdivisions where directly related to increased financial city's edges, increasingly invades all terri- sumer choice and competitive prn.es. houses are constructed in a factory-like return. In cities, the results are clear: tories, both rural and urban. The subur- "Designed to sen ice the aeedt of cus- manner, are now distributed lot by lot Collective civic interests — cultural, social. ban product workl now shapes virtual!) tomers irom start to finish,"' il incorpo- across f lousion. Essentially, every neigh- or environmental — are swept under by all private development (lor the most rates almost every conceivable component borhood becomes a potential David waves of private development, immune to part, the only game in townl, turning of the home-buying process; a map room Weekley'*' subdivision. any value save the bottom line. every place, except perhaps Manhattan. of Weekley communities, on-site model Marketing offers the consumer an This is not to say that other values into a Suburb, l o r the marketer as for the homes, a show room of finishes and fix- entire philosophy of living at the New disappear. In fact, they're touted, es- consumer, the suburban sylvan ideal dis- 1 1 tures, and even a mortgage and title com- I Ionic C enter * . The homes are presented poused, and, ot course, capitalized upon places .1 dirty urban reality. pany to .issist in financing and closing the as the product of "over 20 years ot every day. You can't market anything — Never mind that as cities expand our deal. This combination of service and research into how people live."" Accor- save perhaps stocks or bonds — by trans- parents' suburban becomes our urban, as 1 1 selection generates an atmosphere of ding to sales literature, l.ifcDcsign * , parently presenting its effect on the pro- ours will must likelv he mil children's. In exclusivity by ottering what seems to be a Week lev "s residential ethos, is "an art, .1 diner's profits. Added, apparently mar- Houston, arguably the country's most Customized experience. science, a unique ingredient in each home ket-tree values — patriotism, family. suburban city, recent private development 11 1 lomebuyers can choose from over we build that enhances its value." Main Street Americana, neighborlmess — has reconcetved the older, more urban 1 1 1 1 1(1(1 tlooi plans and, through consultation life Design * spins David Weekley * provide the necessary camouflage to core — including yesterda) 's suburbs — with a Weekley designer, "personalize product out ol the ordinary cycles of sub- shepherd products safch to market. All as a new territory ripe for suburban colo- their home [in one of more than 25 dif- urban marketing and into the world of 111 inner ot goods ami scr\ ices, from phar nization. In the constant search lor new ferent subdivisions! with hundreds of custom construction, "ensuring that your in.Kcutteals to cities, are commonly fields ol operation, private developers are C i I t S 4 2 (I (I 2 s u m m e i 29 Kli* W '%^-jsaw 62007 HAM • Horiww, now backfilling the Inner Loop with p dtow section The furnishings and household development products and lifestyles horn I ^a-ous ;; G e o rq^; : belongings indicate thai the home's lic- on its outer shores. Small city lots are tional family is a young couple with an stuffed with oversized McMansions or infant and a toddler. The smallest bed- multiple townhouses boasting suhurhan- Parisian boulevard! room is furnished as a nursery. Stuffed scaled interiors; candy-colored strip cen- animals fill the crib, and a changing table ters complete with synthetic stucco pedi- is slocked with I biggies. The second bed- ments and plenty ol pav ing are placed room, a little girl's, houses "Patsy's along every busy street. Even when new Puppet Playhouse," with the puppet typologies for housing are introduced or actors hung from the theater's ceiling and rediscovered —townhouses, lolls, or world's largest company, constantly become more generic, it becomes harder an audience of dolls on the bed. The apartments over retail — they are clothed manipulates its floor stock in response to lor a builder to gam a competitive edge. FlexSpace** is certainly the young father's in the neo-traditional garb ol their subur- real-time demographic profiling. As cus- Better product placement (exclusivity) or domain — at least until another child ban COUSinS and often exhibit the same tomers check out, their purchases are cor- discount pricing (economy) offer advan- comes along. The room is outfitted with negligent behavior in regard to the public related item by item with oilier purchases tages, but both tend to reduce the poten- fishing poles, nets, aquatic taxidermy, and realm. Adjoining townhouses huddle in in.iJi m evi i\ othci store in the system tial size of the market. It is possible, how- fishing-related prints, t i n the desk sits ,i gated, insular enclaves or line block after Armed with that information, Wal-Mart ever, to offer an essentially generic product flat-screen computer by Props™, an elec- block with a continuous wall ot garage adjusts the distribution of its products under the guise of exclusivity, and to offer tronics company that apparently reduces doors facing the street. As development both globally aitd locally. In a similar the appearance of distinction with the overhead by dispensing with circuitry. seeks new shell space in the Innei Loop, manner, but without benefit of manage- assurance of affordability. The master bedroom |or "owner's the complex mixture ol buildings and ment, real-estate product in I louston is That, of course, is the magic of retreat," as it is known in most contem- programs that defines a vibrant urban constantly repositioned for better market David Weekley's big box. porary residential developers' plans) is setting is replaced with the bland homo- performance. The city's streets — its least distinguished by any character geneity of the newest exurban subdivi- shelves — are constantly restocked. New SuperModel Homes trans except, ol course, a tastl foi the IM sions and snips.