CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL LUXURY LIVING
March 2008

Tuscan by Design
A sojourn in Italy inspires Rip Farris' luxury development

By Julie Bird

Most people peering through the trees into the construction site at Colony and Carmel roads would see little more than red Carolina clay, but Ray "Rip" Farris envisions a Tuscan landscape. When his $40 million Hagood Reserve development is complete, 36 luxury condominiums and townhomes patterned after grand Italian country villas will overlook a 2-acre pond. Glass doors in the main living areas of 3,000-square-foot plus condos will open onto large terraces overlooking the water and 4.5 acres of woods and trails. Water will trickle down fountains in formal gardens.

For Farris, it's a dream come true.

"This project is very important to our company. We've all loved it," says Farris, president of Tuscan Development. "I think once it's done it'll be a landmark project."

Prices range from $810,000 for a first floor, 3,450-square-foot unit facing Colony Road to $1.15 million for a similar-sized, fourth-floor unit overlooking the pond. The townhomes are a little larger at 3,600 square feet and start at $1.05 million.

Farris took his ideas to Jenkins-Peer Architects in Charlotte, complete with a slide show of villas and classic architectural details he had photographed in Italy, says principal Tyke Jenkins. Jenkins and Victor Jones, a partner in the firm, served as lead architects.

"We had to be true to these classic styles of architecture," Jenkins says. That meant, for example, maintaining the proportions on Roman columns, and using a true stucco exterior and red-tile roofs, he says.

Parking is beneath the buildings, eliminating a potential eyesore and preserving more of the land, Jenkins says. Each building has a covered terrace on the ground floor for entertaining; a terrace and fountain with steps leading down to the pond that lies between them.

Construction started in January after Tuscan secured financing for the larger of two condo buildings, but getting there was a little bumpy.

Things were simple enough at the beginning, when the site basically fell in Farris' lap. A property owner called him after seeing a newspaper article about Tuscan restoring a small pond as part of another project.

"You've got to see our pond," Henry James told him, so Farris did. He had driven past the property for 25 years without ever realizing there was a pond concealed by woods.

W.W. Hagood Jr. had left the land to James' wife, Sally, and her sister, Adele Hagood, but the three were weary of keeping up the wooded 9-acre property and were entertaining development offers. James told Farris other developers wanted to mow down the trees and drain part of the pond. Would Farris, he wondered, see things differently?

Indeed he did. The plan he developed with Jenkins-Peer and Peter Lindsay Schaudt Landscape Architecture Inc. of Chicago clustered the buildings on 2.5 acres on one side of the pond, preserving the rest of the site as a wildlife reserve. The owners gave their blessing and, in March 2005, Tuscan filed to rezone the property to multifamily housing from three single-family homes per acre.

That's when the trouble started, with neighbors in Giverny and another adjacent single-family neighborhood worried about introducing such density to the area. Some didn't want any development at all on the property, Farris says.

"At the first neighborhood meeting, we walked into a buzz saw," he says. "It really turned ugly. "

Farris says much of the opposition waned after neighbors learned he was planning an upscale project, but other neighbors remained unconvinced. Tuscan withdrew and revised its rezoning request, reducing the height of the building closest to Carmel Road to three stories and increasing the tree buffer.

The city approved the new rezoning request in January 2007 and issued construction permits in October. Adele Hagood's home has been torn down to make way for the condo buildings. The James' home is being renovated for the couple. Framing is expected to start soon on the first building, once pre-sales satisfy lender requirements.

Farris plans to build the larger four story, 19-unit building first and see how sales go before starting the adjoining condo building, which is slated to contain 14 units on three floors.

"Buyers will be able to choose from a variety of high-end selections without having to pay a premium," says Moira Alair, Tuscan's sales and marketing director. Each unit will have two or three bedrooms, an open kitchen, living and dining area, a library and a private terrace.

Standard choices include Viking appliances; granite countertops in the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry; flooring selections including hand-scraped maple, rosewood and cork; and custom cabinetry. The master and secondary bathrooms will have Jacuzzi tubs, imported ceramic tile or tumbled marble with accents of glass or listello tile and stone. Living spaces will boast architect-designed fireplace mantels of marble or granite and designer lighting, including chandeliers.

The units will have upgrades available for additional cost. They include a wall safe, a coffee bar in the master bedroom, a wine cooler in the top-floor units, a private elevator in the townhomes, built-in library shelving and customized storage systems.

Tuscan hired artist and interior designer Dina Lowery to select high-end finishes for three design styles: Mediterranean, traditional and contemporary. Lowery paired materials and finishes to work well together to create any of the styles.

Homeowners are free to mix and match among the styles, Lowery says. An owner with traditional furniture, for example, could select a glass kitchen backsplash to add a contemporary flair.

"The beauty of it was they trusted what I could do for them," Lowery says of Tuscan. Some of her favorites among the standard choices are the exotic rosewood floors in the traditional collection, the kitchen cabinets in the contemporary line and the hand-scraped, 4-inch-wide floor planks in the Mediterranean style.

"These aren't things you find in standard design centers," she says. "They're doing it the right way, and I don't think anyone would come away disappointed."