Katie K Team

By Lisa M. Jensen

A collaborative understanding of what makes a home timeless is bringing new life to an East Grand Rapids legacy.

Designing a new home on a blank slate opens endless doors of possibility. But when that canvas is set in a frame to ensure quality and neighborhood cohesion, distinction is born from architectural inspiration and architectural ingenuity.

At Wilcox Gardens — an exclusive site condominium community that offers five new home sites, the last remaining in East Grand Rapids — builder/designer Jeffery Roberts has both.

Architectural inspiration first came from the former Wilcox family community house. More prevalently recognized as 2010’s Symphony Showhouse, this unique brick residence with its inner courtyard was built in 1920. Having expressed his knowledge of and appreciation for its architecture to the owners of Wilcox Gardens (TDG, LLC), Roberts accepted the role of overseeing home design for new residences here.

“It was important to TDG that we have an overall concept for this community,” he said. “In this part of East Grand Rapids, every surrounding residence was designed for its owners by an architect — it wasn’t just built. But while each expresses that individuality, their quality of craftsmanship and natural materials ties them all together.”

To begin creating concept designs for available home sites at Wilcox Gardens, East Grand Rapids-based Roberts followed a research trail to public parks surrounding his studio in downtown Chicago.

“Many of these park district structures were built during the ’20s, the same era as the Wilcox community house,” he explained. “They capture the period character we are after.”

In places like Lincoln Park, the Windy City’s largest at just over 1,200 acres, Roberts photographed and documented styles of architecture and materials used.

“A gardener’s shed here — a combination of stone and brick, with curved, bracketed archways and a quaint, cottage exterior — literally was the springboard for our Lincoln Park home concept at Wilcox Gardens,” he noted.

Architectural Ingenuity

To turn his inspirations, historical expertise and attention to detail into several  design concepts for the new community, Jeffery Roberts Homes worked in conjunction with veteran Grand Rapids Magazine (GRM) Design Home architect Wayne Visbeen and award-winning Visbeen Associates, Inc.

Though not an exclusive architect for Wilcox Gardens, Visbeen will also be collaborating with Roberts and buyers of the first home site purchased to develop GRM’s next Design Home.

“Wayne and his associates (including David Lorenz and Paul Fikse) are able to turn my research, inspirations and concepts into a buildable set of plans,” Roberts said. “He’s exceptional at not only being able to see three-dimensionally in his mind and translate that onto paper, but at remaining practical financially as to how those concepts can be translated into reality. “And he doesn’t compromise on design quality to achieve that.” Drawing from French, English and Spanish period architecture that influenced earlier Wilcox family homes as well as 1920s’ Chicago parks-inspired structures, these starting point home plans are united by exteriors crafted from natural materials including stone, brick, slate and stucco and use of reclaimed architectural elements to add distinction.

“Each of these homes also, in some way, incorporates a large, usable front porch to promote community,” Roberts said. “They might be screened or open air, but they all come off key living areas in the homes so that when you’re out in them, you can interact with neighbors passing by.”

And while landscaping will be individually tailored to suit each home’s character and property, mailboxes and driveway markers will be united to underscore that sense of community, as well as offer clean elegance. “Wilcox Gardens today will be developed the way Caroline Wilcox originally envisioned, which was for her children to express their individuality in homes of their own on the family estate, but to maintain togetherness,” Roberts said.

Located within immediate proximity to schools, shopping and recreation, Wilcox Gardens will offer the rare opportunity to build within the land-locked community of East Grand Rapids. This site-condominium development will be a combination of existing and new single-family homes. Visbeen Associates, Architects, in conjunction with Jeffery Roberts Homes, has developed several design concepts for these exceptional historic home sites. Don’t miss this opportunity to build in
one of America’s most livable communities.

To inquire about available lots in Wilcox Gardens please contact Katie Karczewski at (616) 575-0119.