Bellwether Design-Build Wins Asheville Pace Award For 2 Categories

Asheville Home Builder Floor Plan

Bellwether Design-Build is excited to announce that we have won two great awards from the Asheville Home Builders Association! Brad from Bellwether has created a heavy focus on a line of affordable spec homes going up in the Asheville area, and some on the outskirts in a few up and coming towns. If you do not know anything about a spec home, it is a home that a builder constructs and then sells, many times through a Realtor, or sometimes just on their own. For the sake of time and price, many builders do not allow the clients to pick out or change anything about the home, at least until it is purchased. Of course with the affordable housing crisis in Asheville, Bellwether made it a mission to not only build custom mansions, but also do a common line for folks who are looking for a starter home, or maybe a growing family.

Asheville Home Builders Pace Award - Public Relations

The first award won was the Asheville Pace Award for “Best Public Relations Effort”, which was based on a video project initiated by Gary of G Social Media, and it filmed the progress of the home from start to finish, ending with a video interview with the wonderful family who purchased the home on the first day it went on the market. You can see the video series on the Bellwether Design-Build Facebook Page.

Asheville Home Builders Pace Award - Digital Marketing

The next award won was the Asheville Pace Award for “Best Digital Marketing Effort”, and this was based mostly on the distribution of the video project on social media by Gary and the team, which resulted in thousands of targeted views from Asheville, and also many views from different cities and states. The end result… a line of clients patiently waiting for one of Bellwether’s homes to hit the Asheville market.

Asheville Home Builders Playhouse Showdown 2017

Enka High School playhouse build

Brad Rice, owner and general contractor at Bellwether Design-Build is mentoring Enka High School students again this next year through the Playhouse Showdown program put on by the Asheville Home Builders Association (AHBA). Brad is working Enka High, which is one of several local high schools involved. Brad is working with the students in the Buncombe County Careers and Technical Education (CTE) program to help mentor them while they’re designing and building a children’s playhouse.

The playhouses have a theme each year and are built to certain guidelines determined by the AHBA. Asheville Home Builders Association member companies donate the materials to build these playhouses. Each school’s CTE students are matched up with a home builder like Brad to help mentor them during the construction process. Brad works hands-on with the students and teachers to help them design the playhouse and construct it.

The finished playhouses will be on display at the 2017 Asheville Home Builders Association’s Build and Remodel Expo. They’ll be raffled off there as well as a fundraiser for the schools. Part of the proceeds will be donated to each the Buncombe County Careers and Technical Education Programs. The rest of the proceeds go back to each of the schools in the form of scholarship money.

If you want a chance to win Enka High’s playhouse or one of the others, raffle tickets are on sale for $5 each and include admission to the Asheville Home Builders Association’s Build and Remodel Show. The Show will be held on February 25th and 26th of 2017 at the Western North Carolina Ag. Center.

Asheville Home Builders Playhouse Showdown

Brad from Bellwether Design-Build is helping mentor students at Enka High School in Asheville. We’re working with the students to build a playhouse for the Asheville Home Builders Association’s Playhouse Showdown. This is the fourth year of the Playhouse Showdown event. Each year, the Asheville Home Builder’s Association pairs its builder members with a local high school’s construction trade program, the Career and Technical Education program. The builder works with the students and teachers in the program to help build their playhouses. The playhouses are completed in time for the Asheville Home Builders Association’s and then they are raffled off at the AHBA’s Expo and the proceeds benefit the schools.

Each year there is a theme for the playhouses. It’s exciting to see what ideas the students come up with each year using the theme. This year’s theme is Mountain Living. The students decided on the specific theme of their house. The CTE students at Enka High worked with the interior design students to create their playhouse, from the inside-out.

You can see the playhouses in person at the Asheville Home Builder’s Association’s Build and Remodel Expo the weekend of February 27, 2016. They’ll be raffled off on day two of the Expo. You can check them out and pick which one you’d like to try to win. Raffle tickets are just $5.00 each and the proceeds go back to each school and the countywide CTE program. We’d also like to thank the sponsors of this program who donated materials: 84 Lumber, Builders First Source, Jennings, Lowes, and ProBuild.

Check out our interview with the students and teachers about the concept for the Enka High playhouse!