By SALLY WALKER DAVIES
For The Tennessean
Sunday, 04/01/07

With the middle name of Ace, which is what his friends call him, it's no surprise that David Harrington is a bit of a gambler.

Six years ago, the chief executive officer of MTA Distributors was living with his family in a house he bought at foreclosure almost a decade before. The house on
Old Hickory Lake wasn't far from where his wife, Cyndi, grew up in Hendersonville.

The Harringtons fell in love with their lakefront life on metropolitan Nashville's north side and wanted to put down more permanent roots in the area.

"We loved it so much. We wanted to build a house, but there wasn't much opportunity," Harrington says, noting they were hesitant to deal with installing a septic system and the other infrastructure challenges integral to rural living.

So when a friend told him about a new luxury subdivision, the Harringtons took a look. Soon, they had put their money on four waterfront lots and became one of the first to stake their claim in Sumner County's Fairvue Plantation.

While buying or building a brand-new house in a brand-new development in an up-and-coming area is hardly unique, the price tag associated with the Harrington's gamble was; their home and land is now valued at more than $3.2 million, according to the State Comptroller of the Treasury. In Sumner County, that's some high cotton.

But the Harringtons are hardly alone, according to data from Realtracs.com, the compilation of Multiple Listing Service data from counties in Middle Tennessee.

There are 172 new construction homes on the market priced at $1 million or more in Davidson, Sumner and Williamson counties. Of those, eight are in Sumner County, 63 in Davidson and 101 in Williamson.

In 2006, an estimated 300 new construction homes priced at $1 million or more were sold in the Nashville area, says Richard Courtney, President of the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors.

"That's up from '05, when there were 200 right on the button that sold for over a million," he says. "And the year before that, it was in the low 100s."

Courtney notes that those figures do not include the number of custom homes being built, which is not reflected in the Realtracs.com data. He estimates anywhere from 30 to 100 custom homes over the million-dollar mark will be built this year.

By comparison, in the Memphis MLS market, which includes Shelby and Fayette counties, 27 new construc-tion homes priced at $1 million or more were sold in 2006.

Developments rise

In Williamson and Sumner County, the majority of those million-plus homes are in subdivisions or developments that only offer homes at that price point, or, as in the case of Fairvue Plantation, have certain sections of the neighborhood featuring homes in that range. All but one of the eight Sumner County homes priced at $1 million or more and listed on Realtracs.com are in Fairvue Plantation.

That's unlike Davidson County, where new construction developments with homes at that price level tend to include just a handful of homes. The developments in Williamson and Sumner offer dozens of homes in that price range.

Paul Craig is a CPA, a self-described accounting geek who jumped into the high-end development game four years ago when he teamed with a friend who had just bought the bankrupt Legend's Ridge in Franklin. At the time, the development was floundering, having been redrawn to include a golf course. Craig and his partner brought it back to its original plan of 180 one-acre lots, and "it has risen from the ashes," he says.

Once the original plan was back in place, Craig says, lots started selling at a nice pace.

"We sold 52 lots in two-and-a-half years, at an average of $210,000. And we had somebody tell us it would take eight to 10 years to sell them all, but we expect to sell the balance this year."

Also in Franklin is LaurelBrooke, a development by Southern Land Company where new homes are all priced at $1 million and up.

Southern Land's communications director Jim Cheney says the appeal for homeowners is a combination of the physical attributes of the home — spa-like bathrooms, large master suites, high-quality building materials and the like — and the atmosphere of the neighborhood.

"It's more of a lifestyle measurement than monetary measurement," Cheney says. "We place a great deal of our emphasis on walk-ability. Are we preserving open space, are there places that people can gather?"

Ron Davis and his wife, Caye, owners of Classic Design Homes, moved to LaurelBrooke about three years ago.

With two grown sons out of the house but both working in the family business, the Davises could have lived anywhere. As empty-nesters, they could have downsized, but instead they built an 11,000-square-foot home in LaurelBrooke's estate section.

"We built it for entertaining, and for the grandkids, for all of them to have a place to come back to," Ron Davis says.

He adds that the attention to detail — from the landscaping requirements for homeowners, to the lush streetscapes and the scenic walking trails and pretty stone bridges over ponds — add to the bucolic atmosphere they were looking for.

Realtor Ginger Brooks with Fernwood Real Estate sold three million-plus homes in Legend's Ridge last year and agrees that the neighborhood's amenities are a deciding factor for buyers.

"There's a big fishing lake, tennis courts, a walking trail, swimming pool — lots of open common areas," says Brooks, who adds that the allure of excellent public and private schools, as well as the ease of access to Nashville proper, is always a major factor in the appeal of Williamson County.

Sumner is new hot spot

While Williamson's appealing traits have always been a draw for homeowners who can afford life's luxuries, Fairvue Plantation developer Chris Wicke says Sumner County is catching up — with highly regarded public schools, new private schools opening, and new retail and restaurant spaces coming.

And, Wicke says, there's one major asset that is exclusive to Sumner County: Old Hickory Lake. "It is one of the few in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers system where you can live right on the lake and have boat docks," Wicke says. "And we've got over five miles of shoreline."

It was the lake that first attracted the Harringtons to Sumner County 15 years ago. And the lake was a large part of the reason they decided to build a large home in Fairvue Plantation, rather than building a smaller home in the area and purchasing a vacation home elsewhere.

"There are a lot of nice places around the Nashville area, but when you put the water in the backyard, that just brings a complete uniqueness to the whole area," Harrington says. "We can entertain; the house can be a focal point for kids to bring their friends. We feel like it's better to be at home, rather than being at other places."

Can it last?

Call it the $1 million question: whether the Nashville Metro area can sustain the explosive growth of high end, new construction homes.

Across the board, the answer is a resounding yes, although some are more cautious in their optimism.

"I think so," says GNAR's Courtney, who cites news from Partnership 2010 that as many as 40 businesses are on the brink of relocating to Nashville. "It seems that more and more people are coming here. . . . It is a good place to live and is still affordable by most standards."

"Obviously we think it's going to continue," says Wicke, who notes that when folks relocating from California or other expensive markets see what a million dollars can buy in the metro area, they don't bat an eye at spending that amount, or more.

"For people coming out of town, Nashville is a big bargain," says Wicke.

Legend Ridge's Paul Craig, however, is hedging his bets. His company's next Williamson County development features homes selling in the $600,000 to $800,000 range.

"Williamson County will always be a highly desirable place to live; I don't think that's going to change," Craig says. "And there are parts of Sumner County that are ready to explode. But people only have so much money to spend."