Finally, a dream come true

Photos by Ryan Lely

After months of anticipation, during which many Sonomans tiptoed onto the porch
of the house on the corner of Patten and Fifth Street East to sneak a peek, the HGTV Dream Home 2009 is finally finished. Although the sweepstakes winner of the home will not be announced for months, pictures will not be available on the Web site until Dec. 15 and members of the public cannot gain access until after the first of the year, on Monday, officials of the TV channel welcomed the media inside to give them a preview.
What the visitors saw was a spectacular interior, all the more impressive because the home’s exterior is relatively modest. Though HGTV Dream Home House planner Jack Thomasson describes it as Victorian in style, there are few if any of the elements commonly associated with Victorian architecture, such as mansard roofs and gables, let alone gingerbread trim. This house, which was built from the ground up beginning in October, is considered a version of a Victorian farmhouse – the type of structure that has lower-pitch roofs and little of the frou-frou seen on San Francisco’s “painted ladies.”
At this house, the dramatic color is all inside. Interior designer Linda Woodrum, with a mindset that melds art and science, was painstaking in her selection of paint shades. Her challenge, she said, was creating a color palette that is interesting and rich but not so intense that it becomes overwhelming. Her trick is to “gray down” colors that are too bright. Not everyone might consider shades like Armagnac (Sherwin-Williams’ name for a paint that evokes fine brandy) or “Inland Green” (a deep tone just this side of vivid) to be wallflowers, as it were, but by tempering the more intense colors, Woodrum can claim to have done the entire house in what she calls “earth tones.”
Woodrum did her homework – visiting Sonoma, shopping around the Plaza and chatting up locals to learn what people considered the essence of the Valley and why they lived here. “I quickly understood this is an agrarian economy,” she said, with a lifestyle influenced by the Mediterranean climate and access to both the ocean and the mountains. Her goal was to reflect those factors in decorating the house.
The choice of paint apparently set the tone for the selection of furnishings, light fixtures and decorative options such as window dressing. Woodrum used yellow – “the strongest spectrum in the color palette” – for an upstairs guest room. “I didn’t want to have it dominate,” she said, but it provides a useful base color that lets other colors take center stage. In the master bedroom, Woodrum decided that Inland Green would detract from the dramatic drapes at each corner of the four-poster bed, so she used a cream color on the ceiling and the wall behind the bed, creating a dreamy island conducive to relaxation and sleep. The light flooding in from an alcove flanked on three sides by tall windows creates an inviting spot for curling up and reading.
The excitement begins just within the west-facing front door, which opens onto an entry hall flanked by a dining room on one side and a living room on the other. Each room on the ground floor is a distinctly different color, but they work together: the Gray Dove of a hallway makes peace with the Pewter Blue of the living room walls, for example, as well as with the Henna shade of the dining room and the Bagel shades in the foyer.
Aside from color, the single most impressive element in the house is the hardwood flooring provided by Lumber Liquidators, one of several sponsoring companies that make the annual Dream Home possible. Others include Belgard Pavers, Ethan Allen (furnishings, window treatments, area rugs), Jeld-Wen doors and windows, Wellborn cabinets, Silestone countertops and Wolf/Sub-Zero appliances.
In all, the HGTV Dream Home 2009 features three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, a home office/study with a fully stocked wine closet, a gourmet kitchen and a two-car garage. Beyond the long porch along the rear of the house are a patio area, an outdoor kitchen, a garden vineyard and landscaping in roses, azaleas and rhododendrons.
The 3,628-square-foot Victorian-style home, located in Armstrong Estates, was built by celebrated vintner and developer Steve Ledson, along with Bruce Lee; the two have collaborated on some 18 houses together over the years.
Members of the public can enter the sweepstakes drawing to win the HGTV Dream House 2009 between Jan. 1 and Feb. 19. Last year’s sweepstakes attracted some 41 million entries, so competition is steep. The winner takes home not only the house and all its contents, but also an AMC Acadia. For more details, visit the Web site, hgtv.com.