Homearama!

There’s nothing like spending an afternoon walking through 9,000 square-foot, $2.5 million homes like this one to make you feel dissatisfied with your own place.

Yesterday I took the afternoon off work and my husband and I headed to Homearama. Now, it will probably come as no surprise to you that I am obsessed with Homearama. I have only missed one year’s show in 20 years, and that was only because I had a new baby (babies can be such a nuisance!).

What’s Homearama, you ask? Well, every summer, luxury homebuilders come together in one subdivision to showcase their work and thrill us with what’s new and exciting in housing and design trends. This year the Cincinnati show took place in Deerfield Township’s Long Cove neighborhood.

Long Cove has been the site of four different Homearamas over the years, so it’s fun to just drive around it and gawk. All the houses are connected by a manmade “cove” of water and the views are lovely from the back porches, terraces, and gazebos, like this one:

There were 10 houses to tour this year, all of which had at least 7,000 square feet to roam around in and cost more than $1.5 million.

The homes in the show get bigger and more elaborate every year. I remember when they had their first $1 million home, and it seemed ludicrous that anyone would spend that much on a house. Now the $1.5 houses on the tour were the runts of the litter. Only 7,000 square feet? Who could fit all their stuff in there?

As I’ve mentioned before, I worked for a big-shot designer in Indy who decorated a Homearama house one summer, and it was, like, the highlight of my whole entire life to be an insider for the show. (Not a highlight: the embarrassing Diet Coke mishap at the Homearama premiere that I was invited to–if you missed that tale of humiliation, click here.)

Of course I took my camera yesterday so I could take pictures for you. And unlike the North Avondale Home Show, which prohibited interior photos, I was allowed to take them here. I was practically shaking with excitement. This is how I get my cheap thrills, folks. Sad, but true.

The biggest challenge, at least at first, was waiting until people moved out of the way so I could get a clear shot of each room. Sometimes they wouldn’t move, so there are strangers in some of the photos. Some are not flattering photos of the strangers. If you’re one of them, I apologize for showing your bad photos to the world.

I got halfway through the first house–this one that you’re seeing in this post, named Sophia’s Harbor and built by Rookwod Building Group–taking photos of every ten-foot door and crystal chandelier. I climbed into this ginormous shower so you could see how rich people get clean. And then my camera made a funny noise, flashed a red light at me, and the batteries went dead.

This was a serious crisis. I was ready to cry. All I could do was splutter, “But–the blog–!”

So this is why I have the best husband in the whole world. He said, “Don’t panic. I have an idea.”

He led me downstairs to the media mega-center/home theater they had in the lower level. I couldn’t figure out what on earth he was doing, but he walked over to the guy who had installed the home theater and struck up a conversation with him. Next thing I knew, the guy was pulling batteries out of a big box of them and asking, “How many do you need?”

Can you believe that? I fumbled around in my purse to pay him, but he said, “Oh, I don’t want your money! I’m glad to help!” So, thanks to him, I was able to take nearly 500 photographs of the Homearama mansions yesterday. I told him I would mention him on my blog so you would all know who you have to thank for the photos.

So. I’m telling you. If you need a beautiful in-home theater or whole house audio system, and you live in the Cincinnati area, call Matthew Damron of Architectural Entertainment in Loveland, Ohio. You don’t meet someone that nice and generous every day! I mean, really.

I’ve got so many fabulous rooms and houses to show you, thanks to those new batteries, that I hardly know where to begin. It’ll take me days just to crop and name them all!

Some will make good posts about creative children’s rooms. Others would be perfect for another round of “Hooked or Hate It?” I’m also going to work on putting together a Fantasy Open House so you can tour some of them from top to bottom and then vote for your favorite. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Look at this sad house (above). It wasn’t even on the Homearama tour, but apparently someone is desperate to sell it. I made Dave pull over so I could get a picture of it on our way to the show. There were more banners across the side touting all of its features: 5 BR! 5.5 BA! 3 CAR GAR!

Do you have Homearama in your town? Did any of my Cincinnati-area readers go yet? What did you think of the houses this year?

Tagged as: Cincinnati, home builders, Home show, home tour, homearama, Ohio