When the kids are all still living at home and the house is a playground for everyone from their closest confidantes to their most casual acquaintances, the five-bedroom, three bathroom split-level is not a luxury, it is an investment in parents’ continued sanity.
But at a certain age – the one between the ages known as “middle” and “old” – when life quiets and mom and dad are able to enjoy the peace and solitude of empty nest syndrome, that dwelling might begin to look cavernous and seem like a lot of trouble to maintain.
That ever-increasing scenario, especially in an aging area like Western Pennsylvania, gave Tom Janidas and Joseph Cuervo, co-owners of Orchardview Development Corp., the idea to give those folks the opportunity to downsize without sacrificing the comfort and elegance of their larger homes.
“Why can’t a small house be a nice house?” asked Janidas rhetorically when explaining his vision for Summerbrooke, a planned residential community in North Strabane that, when finished, will have 51 “villas,” 21 townhouse units, six carriage homes and 98 single-family dwellings.
His point, of course, is “there is no reason at all.”
“It’s like buying a big diamond when you’re younger because you are impressed by its size,” Janidas, a resident of Cranberry Twp., analogized about the downsizing process. “That diamond might be big but doesn’t have good clarity. Later in life you might want a smaller, but more clear stone.”
Most of the villas at Summerbrooke, which sits high on a hill overlooking Rt. 19 not far from the I-79 off-ramp, will measure between 1,800 and 3,000 square feet of living space. Buyers’ wants and needs are an important point to Janidas and his partner of 23 years. Each home in the development will be designed by the customer with the help of the developers.
“We design our houses around the way people live,” Janidas said, noting that his company gives potential buyers as much or as little help with suggestions about the size, style, layout, interior and exterior design and color schemes as they request. The final decision rests with the people who will be living with those decisions, probably for a good, long time.
The New Homes Division of Coldwell Banker recently took over the marketing and some of the financing at Summerbrooke.
Its director, Bill Dietrich, thinks that the time is ripe for such an arrangement.
“People are making a large purchase and they don’t want to be hamstrung,” Dietrich said.
“There are a lot of areas in the South Hills that have been built by other (more traditional) builders that don’t offer buyers the same choices.”
Janidas, who grew up in nearby Follansbee, WV, spent a few years in the banking and finance industry where he learned a lot about his present career that started in 1984 with a condominium conversion project in his home state. Since then, land development and home building has been his only full-time occupation.
Another option, however, might have been the developer’s early life interest in music.
“I was always more interested in music than in school,” Janidas says without a tinge of regret or remorse in his voice.
While in school, he played drums in several local bands although, he states emphatically, he was not – as legend has it – a member of a Pittsburgh-based band who had a number one hit in the seventies. In fact, Janidas asks that the name of the band and record not be mentioned in an effort to let the rumor die a natural death. However, he has no such desire to hide the fact that he still has a drum kit set up in his house and will even occasionally accept an offer to play live at some nearby venues.
After the move into land development, his burgeoning business took him and wife Darlene to New Jersey for two decades. They moved to this area a few years ago when Darlene wanted to be closer to her family. Since then he and Cuervo – who also came back to Pittsburgh where his wife’s family resides – have been working locally on their special kind of home building projects.
“We aren’t track builders,” Janidas said, referring to home builders who give customers only a few styles of houses from which to choose. “We want to take something common and do it uncommonly well.”
According to Coldwell Banker’s Dietrich, there are other reasons that Summerbrooke may be attractive to those looking to downsize or just relocate. “It gives (the buyer) a more affordable alternative,” he said, noting that older, more established South Hills areas like Bethel Park, Mt. Lebanon and Upper St. Clair can command higher prices for property than an up-and-coming area like North Strabane. He did admit, however, that as the township and surrounding municipalities become more popular this particular advantage would quickly disappear.
“We have an affluent group (in Western Pennsylvania) that wants this type of home,” the New Homes director contends.
If that is the case, Tom Janidas is more than happy to oblige.
