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To lure buyers, builder spares no expense on lavish model By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe Staff, 4/30/01
WEB-ONLY
OTHER PARTS
WBZ-TV reporter Ron Sanders and photographer Tom Rehkamp joined in the Globe investigation. Watch their reports on RealVideo.
PART ONE
The Globe Spotlight Team would like to hear from readers willing to share their experiences -- or thoughts -- about new home construction. The Spotlight telephone number is (617) 929-3208. Confidential messages about new home construction and other issues can also be left at (617) 929-7483. You can email Spotlight at spotlight@globe.com.
It's the unmistakable scent of freshly baked bread, a sensory tease traced to the spacious gourmet kitchen, where a still-warm loaf cools on a sleek granite countertop.
Stylish ceramic tile covers the floor. Classical music wafts from built-in ceiling speakers. A handwritten note, affixed to the refrigerator with a Campbell's soup can magnet and signed, simply, ''Mom,'' reads: ''Sara, please pick up Jimmy at 5!''
This is the unoccupied model home at Hopkinton Highlands, the most exclusive Toll Brothers development in the state, and a prime example of the kind of detailed, sophisticated marketing tools Toll uses to lure buyers to its vision of suburban Utopia. If this luxurious model, a ''Madison Federal'' with top-of-the-line upgrades - solarium, skylights, conservatory - were put on the market today, a saleswoman says, the asking price would be $800,000.
Little wonder. It is a design masterpiece, from the dramatic two-story entrance foyer and sweeping staircase to the second-floor balcony overlooking the family room below. And its beautiful, lavish decor exemplifies why many home buyers say they are swept off their feet by Toll's model homes.
So realistically furnished and decorated is this house that it appears possible that its fictional occupants have just stepped out for a while.
Upstairs, in the expansive master suite - with a carpeted walk-in closet so cavernous that a practice putting green inside is dwarfed by comparison - a framed photo of a smiling bride and groom graces a sitting room table. A handled tray - leftover from breakfast in bed? - rests on a king-size mattress.
Down the hall, two children's rooms brim with toys. One - Jimmy's, presumably - is strewn with shin guards, comic books, and soccer shoes. Baseball cards line the walls. A little girl's room, swathed in flowered pink wallpaper, overflows with dolls and Beanie Babies, and a handwritten diary beckons visitors to an open page.
''Jimmy and Jane are having so much fun with their new friends in the neighborhood!'' it reads. ''Moving to Hopkinton Highlands was such a wonderful idea.''
This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 4/30/2001.
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OPKINTON - The alluring aroma strikes as soon as visitors walk through the door.
