A Sudbury-based homebuilder is in the running for a national award from the Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA).
SLV Homes has been selected as a finalist for a 2017 National Award for Housing Excellence in the Whole House-$100,000 to $250,000 category.
This marks the second consecutive year SLV has been a finalist for a CHBA award.
In 2016, the builder was a finalist in two categories: New Home and Home Renovation (kitchen).
Louie Zagordo, SLV’s president, said it was an honour to be selected.
“That puts us in the top five in our category, nationally,” said Zagordo, who is currently serving his third term as president of the Sudbury & District Home Builders’ Association.
Up for contention is SLV’s ‘The Ramsey House,’ a renovation of an existing home, situated on Sudbury’s Ramsey Lake, which was originally constructed in the 1960s.
The overall scope of the project included updating and modernizing the home’s interior, which was “chopped up” by multiple floor levels, multiple interior walls and sloped ceilings throughout, Zagordo said.
“So, we basically took that look and opened it up to an open concept,” he said. “From the kitchen, you see the front door, the family room, and living room, all on one level, and it opened up the whole concept.”
The firm also added larger windows to broaden the view of the lake and transformed the ceiling from a sloped design to a coffered look. New, more modern lighting completed the design.
For a personal touch, SLV incorporated older stone from the existing fireplace into the new concept — a request from the client.
Zagordo pinpoints the kitchen as the project’s focal point. “The biggest highlight was the kitchen,” Zagordo said. “(There is) more space for family get-togethers and gatherings, which is very common these days.”
The entire project took three months to complete, from start to finish.
Finalists are selected for the CHBA Awards after submitting a detailed project scope that outlines the project’s features, including how the firm secured the job, materials requested by the client, materials recommended by the firm, design work, budgeting, and a list of trades working on the job.
From there, more than 70 judges assessed the entries over several weeks to whittle them down to the finalists, and the winners were selected by a national panel of judges.
The CBHA said it received a record number of entries this year. “It’s quite the process to get to be a finalist,” said Zagordo.
He’ll be in attendance in May for the CHBA’s 74th annual national conference — which typically attracts up to 700 participants — on behalf of the Sudbury & Home Builders’ Association.
But he’ll also be there representing his firm, the only one from Northern Ontario to be selected as an award finalist.
“We’re very honoured to be nominated,” Zagordo said. “As a finalist, it feels really good when you’re looking at the big jumbo screen, you hear your name, and they say ‘Sudbury, Ontario’ — you feel pretty proud about that.”
The CHBA will give out 39 awards in five categories to homebuilders from across the country during the association’s 74th National Conference on May 12 in St. John’s, Nfld.
