I'm a big fan of this Urban Oasis, good job HGTV. The entry, powder room and kitchen's sleek black, grey and white grabs your attention and exudes urban style. The living room works well with them and transitions you to a very calm zen space. The living room is my favorite, the painting just caps the whole design perfectly. Then the stripped, colorful canopy/wall treatment shocks one's senses (not a fan), followed by the white-out bathroom which comes off pale in comparison. A few minor fixes and I'd be glad to call it home. Towel bar in the bedroom? Bedside cabinets not tables please. Don't like the white doors on the dresser in the living room. I guess the fireplace is only to be enjoyed while sitting at the counter?

Is that a Sharkanado in the Sun Room? How au courant of DIY.

Good find. That's just the hawaiian open plan, open air architecture I dream of. Although I appreciate the plantation designs of Kauai Design, Shay Zak is more my style. The Kauai Design's Kukui'ula homes seem to be expertly conceived homes based on the 'art of living in small spaces". I'm all in for Kukui'ula. How do we persuade Jack?

Wow! Lot's of good research here. Thanks. I too was poking around on the net and found the following which paints a slightly different picture. If I won it no doubt I'd be the one who breaks my leg on the mountain and would have to navigate through the Dream Home. At least there is a bedroom on the first floor. Just no one close the door to the master bedroom cause it would be impossible for me to open from the wheelchair on the corridor side.
http://www.bigbeargrizzly.net/news/article_70e0ea...

And, what about those taxes? Would a person who takes the money and runs be subject to any additional CA taxes due the project's location? Me thinks... nay. It's just an either/or proposition handled in Tennessee.

Here's a question for someone in CA (DB?). The residence does not comply with the requirements of ADA so does that mean you are not permitted to rent the house. Would not renting out the house make you a landlord and thus legally required to provide accommodation for persons with disabilities. I can't believe HGTV would create all these fantastic vacation homes (and UO's for that matter) so appropriate for renting out and leave you exposed to ADA litigation. What if one of the 'guests' breaks a leg on Northstar? Can they sue because their accommodation was not per code? More reason to provide a true Dream Home for year round living... for a family.

By the Way - Why no North arrow on this floor plan?

Good one. But remember you first have to separate your groceries because it looks like the kitchen has limited storage and the pantry looks to be nearby the garage.

HGTV has asked for our thoughts. Here goes. Ward Young have provided a wonderful contemporary mountain look to this DH with the combination of steel, wood and stone fireplaces. I’m sure the seismic, flat roof, R-values and the heat loss through the glass will be conquered with proper design. The floor plan however is another matter. Functionally it has problems, which I will go into below. I think we should expect a well considered and ‘vetted’ design from a firm called “Home and Garden”. See if you agree with my observations. Be aware that as a coastal Texan, my knowledge of how to live in deep snow is minimal. I’m just applying logic here.

Picture the following: Guests arrive in the dead of snowy winter and they come into your generous entry and you take their coats…ah where’s the closest closet? The closest closet appears to be back by the mudroom. You send your guest off to find the living room while you disappear for a while to hang up their coats. Oh, and don’t forget the wet shoes. I have no idea what happens to the shoes. Do mountain folk have their guests enter through the garage in order to get to the mud room? Note: The Midway and Vermont DH’s and the Maine Blog Cabin had exterior entries into the mudroom. The connector entry seems to be a waste as usable space, not to mention the feng shui pho pa [sic] of having the dragon’s cosmic breath Chi enter through the front door only to immediately exit through the other side of the house. Maybe HGTV should pass the design by their very own feng shui expert Stephanie McWilliams.

Now picture the following: You get up in the middle of the night and want a snack. You trudge all the way over to the other side of the house to make a sandwich. You’re out of mayo so you trudge back through the connecting corridor to what looks like a pantry by the mudroom to get a new jar. Boy that connecting corridor looks bleak at 2 am. What if you want popcorn or a drink refill while watching a movie in the media room, or what if you are doing laundry while cooking…you get the picture… that connecting corridor sure looks a lot longer. In my book a gage of the success of a plan is whether, if caught while improperly dressed, say getting a snack in the kitchen, I can get back to my bedroom from other parts of the house without passing through the entry. Not gunna happen at the ‘Mills’. Must be prudent at all times in this house.

Here’s a good one. Your spouse shuts you down because she has a headache and ‘retires’ to the master bedroom. So what do you do? You go up to the media room and put on that new action film, Fast and Furious 17, that you have wanted to watch with your new surround sound video system with multi-speakers and subwoofer. Yeah, the only thing fast and furious is how fast and how furious you’ll be shut down…again. Please, please tell us the media room will have extraordinary soundproofing.

Placing both the entry and the kitchen in a widened, center ‘connector’ and reducing the size of the living/dining wing would improve functionality. The kitchen would still be a galley kitchen making it close to both wings. The kitchen would look out over the courtyard and I’d have a counter height window that could be opened up for serving directly to the patio. This Kitchen location also shortens up the plumbing runs, which saves money. Will there be a long wait for hot water in the kitchen? The water heater looks to be over by the garage. An entry coat closet could be incorporated into the dividing wall between the foyer and the kitchen. Also I’d close up the area below the stair for a larger pantry. Aren’t large pantries required in areas prone to being snowed-in? Upstairs I’d switch the guest room with the Media room and maybe open up one side of the media room to the stair. I hope HGTV and my fellow bloggers will find these observations constructive. I know there are more surprises coming from HGTV on the DH. Can’t wait to see what they are.

Eugenia27: I looked it up. The Scripps Network in Tennessee, who creates the Dream Home, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego who prepared the earthquake study have no relationship to one another.

AYorkHill8, we're glad you are on the blog and eligible for the contest. I'm surprised my fellow bloggers didn't ask you the big question. Would you be able to be our eyes on the build of the project. We had a blogger that lived only a mile or so from the Midway, Utah Dream Home. Her moniker was Beehivestate and she filled us in on the progress of the home and the activities in the Midway area. The Midway home was not in a gated community like Schaffer's Mill so it was easier to drive by and report the progress. She actually posted photos on a Flicker site she developed. Schaffer Mill Road may afford a distant view of the construction activity. Many of us would like to know which lot was chosen for the 'Dream". Right now it might look like no more than a bunch of trucks, maybe concrete mixer trucks, forming the foundation. By the way, point of order, do you call a person from Truckee-- A Truckeee or a Trucker?

Shake rattle and roll: Seems the property comes with its own faults (earth type that is) :

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/1205...
and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/0904...

Too bad the map in the article doesn't included more of the area above the lake where Schaffer's Mill is located, but suffice it to say any 6.8 quake in the area will shake the 'dream'. Tsunami in a lake - who knew?