Lake
Project - 2003/2006
(click here to go to thumbnails)
News Flash!: On
July 23, 2012 we had the closing for sale of the lake house. A very nice couple
who already owned a lot at Wildwood Shores decided to look for a house that was
already built instead of having one built themselves. Our house was just what
they were looking for.
It's been almost six
years since I last posted any updates and pictures so, as time permits, I will
try to fill in the gap. Since 2006 we've been through a couple of hurricanes
and at least a couple of droughts, one of them being the record-setting drought
of 2011.
Now, back to the
beginning …
In March of 2003, my wife signed up for something at the mall - it was a chance
to win an SUV or something like that. I'll leave out all the gory details but,
after a couple of phone calls from these people, they somehow persuaded us to come look at some lake property. We always ignore these kinds of
pitches. I don't know why we agreed
to follow up on this one - maybe it was just fate!
Anyway, on the 22nd of March, we drove up to this place called "Wildwood
Shores" at the very north end of Lake Conroe (Texas) to "take our
punishment" --do the obligatory tour and listen to the high pressure sales
pitch. Well, first of all, we were impressed by the isolation of this
development. This was in contrast to the developments toward the south end of
the lake, where there are bustling marinas, wall-to-wall lake houses
(basically, upper-middleclass suburban homes with a boat dock or pier), and
more boats, yachts and jet skis than you can shake a stick at! Wildwood Shores, on
the other hand is surrounded on three sides by the Sam Houston National Forest
and on the remaining side by Lake Conroe. In other words, there will never be
any other development within sight of this area.
There was no pressure of any kind as our salesman, a very likeable young man
named Chris, drove us around the development. He told us the basic facts and
answered our questions but never really had to deliver a sales pitch - the
place sells itself! We picked out a lake-view lot which backed up to the
national forest and bought it on the spot. We weren't sure what we were going
to do with it, but we would be "property owners" which would give us
certain privileges without even having a requirement to build.
Over the next several months, we discussed the possibility of building a house
on our lot but didn't set a target date or even look at any house plans. Then,
late in July, we got a mailing from the developer that said that current
property owners would have first choice of the lots in a new section they were
opening. We decided to go up to the lake and take a look. Well, most of the
"prime" lakefront lots (which we couldn't afford anyway) were already
sold by the time we got there. However, there was one lakefront lot left that
looked pretty good to us and was not priced too high. Our salesman, Chris,
showed us this lot and we decided to do the "trade up" (we returned
our other lot to the developer and they applied the equity that we had in that
lot toward the price of the new one). This took place on August 2, 2003.
After the first of the year, my wife and I again started discussing the
possibility of building something on the lot. We made some inquiries and found
a builder, named Rick Stayner, who lived at the development and was currently
working on a couple of new houses there. We got to know Rick and let him know
what we wanted to build, based on what we had seen of his work and on several
house plans we had found on the internet. Rick drew up some basic plans on his
computer and we were off and running.
Then, we ran into a major problem. The first guy we went to for funding dropped
the ball. We went to his office and did the loan application on March 16, 2004,
but, as it turned out, he chose a lender who didn't do new construction loans.
So, about a month had gone by and we were once again looking for a lender. This
time, we chose someone who was referred by a realtor we knew. We did the loan
application with him on April 27th and finally went through a closing on June
9th.
After several weather-related delays, Rick finally got the concrete piers
poured on June 22nd and the project was underway.
Here are some pictures, starting with the first lot. After we bought the second
lot but before we started building, we bought a pontoon boat. There are also
some pictures of the boat as well as pictures that show the progress of the
house construction. Click on each set of pictures to see larger ones. There are
navigation links at the bottom of each set of pictures.
Last update: 9/7/2012