Personality Plus

Trusting the Name
Alli and David Reynolds found their builder, Bacchus Homes in Maplewood, through their realtor. “We originally wanted to purchase an existing house,” Alli Reynolds explains. “We found our perfect house in the Parade of Homes^SM, but it was about 1,000 square feet too big.” Randy Bacchus, owner of the third-generation, family-owned company, and his architect sat down with the Reynoldses to see if one of the firm’s available lots would work and whether Alli and David’s vision fit with Bacchus Homes. “I knew the Bacchus name,” Alli Reynolds says. “Randy asked us a lot of questions about what was important to us. He didn’t want to take the project on if it wasn’t going to be a good fit. I trusted the name. I trusted him.”

That trust was very important to the Reynoldses, who had a poor prior building experience with a different builder. They wanted assurance that this time their builder wasn’t going to build and then abandon the project, leaving the homeowners with unresolved issues. “When there was a problem, Randy always came up with a solution or multiple solutions,” Alli notes. For example, after Alli and David had signed off on their cabinet selection, they realized the microwave was hung too high. “I couldn’t even reach it,” Alli says. “Randy asked the cabinetmakers to come up with a solution. He could have said, ‘You signed off on the plans, so this is what you get.’ Instead, he worked with us and the cabinetmakers.”

Flexibility was also important to the young family, whose new home is in the Hidden Hills Preserve in Hugo. “We were in the middle of selling another home,” Alli says. “When we started the project, we thought we would sell our other house quickly.” When the Reynoldses realized, however, that their old home wasn’t going to sell prior to the original completion date, Bacchus Homes pulled contractors from the project and put them on another for as long as he could. “This enabled us to buy some time to sell the old house,” she adds.

People who are thinking about building need to have a clear idea of what they like, whether that’s a style or a color scheme, Alli advises, because the builder and designers need a solid foundation to build upon. “My kitchen and great room are the epicenter of our home” and are full of personality, she says. “They’re warm, inviting, and rich, with lots of wood. It’s where we hang out.”

Designers are a good liaison who can help builders and homeowners bring personality into the home, Bacchus says. They speak the language of both the homeowner and the builder, and communication is key to producing a home with personality. “A builder needs to set the communication level so that everyone is on the same plane,” Bacchus says.