July 12, 2016

MAHBA Breaks Ground for Vesta Home Show


By Laurie Johnson
– The Daily News –

Members of the Memphis Area Home Builders Association held a ground breaking ceremony Thursday for the 1999 Vesta Home Show, scheduled for October in the Neighborhood of Schilling Farms in Collierville.

The MAHBA announced the six registered builders selected to participate in the show – four who are newcomers to the event and two who have participated in previous shows.

Local builders participating for the first time include Jack and Betty Werne of Bellewood Homes; Tyke Johnson of Brentwood Builders, LLC; Jim McCauley of Jim McCauley & Co. Homes; and Danny Sparkman of Sparkman Home Builders, LLC.

Returning builders include Phil Chamberlain and Jon McCreery of Chamberlain & McCreery and Randy Morris of Morris Homes Builders, LLC.

Taylor Eckols, marketing director for Chamberlain & McCreery, which is participating in the show for the third time, said the company decided to build a home in the show this year because it plans to re-enter the Collierville market.

"We just really wanted to get back into that community again," Eckols said. "We’re wrapping up in East Memphis and going to Germantown, Cordova, Fayette County and Collierville."

The company is developing a 40-lot subdivision, Wincreek, near the Vesta site at Poplar Avenue and Bailey Station Road.

Chamberlain & McCreery has started foundation work for its 3,500-square-foot Vesta home, Eckols said.

The 1999 Vesta Show marks the show’s third appearance in Collierville. The show was held two years in a row in Collierville before moving to east Shelby County in 1997 and Germantown last year.

"Many of our builders are already heavily involved in the Collierville area," said 1999 Vesta Home Show chairman David Parsons. "Collierville is the ideal city for an event that showcases progressive building ideas."

Located along the western edge of Collierville, Schilling Farms is a $350 million, 443-acre, multi-use planned development that eventually will have 1.5 million square feet of office space, 90 acres of distribution space and a variety of residential neighborhoods served by a new Schilling Farms middle school.

The new Collierville YMCA also is being built on land donated by Schilling Farms.

Boyle Investment Company and Harry Smith, chairman of Schilling Inc., are the developers of the project. Schilling Farms’ master plan was designed by Looney Ricks Kiss and Cooper, Robertson & Partners of New York.

Homes in the show probably will average about 4,000 square feet and be valued from $400,000 to $600,000, Eckols said.

The Vesta show homes, which will encircle a park in the development, will be the first group of homes built in Schilling Farms.

The event is expected to draw about 30,000 visitors to the development.

The annual Vesta show, now in its 15th year, is one of MAHBA’s largest fund-raisers. A portion of the proceeds also goes to charity.

This year’s charity is the international Children’s Heart Foundation, which currently is refurbishing a home in Victorian Village called the Heart House, which will house families of children undergoing heart surgery at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.