Christophersons renovate a homebuilding tradition

[caption id="attachment_97856" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Synergy Group principals (from left) Andy Christopherson, Greg Windisch, Brian Flahavan and Keith and Brenda Christopherson at the east Santa Rosa site of the Sky Vista new-home development, with the Skyhawk community in the background[/caption]

SANTA ROSA -- The Christopherson family made a name for itself building several thousand North Bay homes, often in large developments, over three decades until the major housing market correction eight years ago, and now the family business is back with new-home projects and a more diversified company for building, rebuilding and selling dwellings.

"The goal is not to be a one-trick company," said Keith Christopherson, co-founder of Christopherson Homes and one of five principals in Synergy Group, a collection of four development, brokerage, renovation and construction operating companies. "That's what we were in the past with the home-development company."

Though all the businesses -- Synergy Communities, Synergy Realty Group, Synergy Renovation and Synergy Construction -- are related to home construction, the organization will have cash flow and income independent from building residences, he said.

Santa Rosa-based Christopherson Homes built nearly 6,000 homes in Sonoma, Napa, Solano counties as well as near Sacramento since Keith Christopherson started the company as a general contracting, framing and speculative-home company in 1978. But that approach to homebuilding started grinding to a halt in mid-2006, as it did for many local builders, as financing for homebuyers and, thus, new projects dried up.

The family shifted focus to the real estate brokerage side of the business, calling it Artisan Signature Properties, and the contracting side continued on as Nor-Cal Construction Services, working with residential, commercial and remodeling projects.Renovations open doors to projects

In October 2009 as Sonoma County home foreclosures soared amid the global financial crisis and resulting economic recession, the Christophersons got into buying, fixing and selling homes, an investment strategy generally known as "flipping."

But the Christopherson approach wasn't just adding about $50,000 in new countertops, cabinets, carpets, paint and appliances and putting the home back on the market. In the nearly 70 homes Synergy Homes, now called Synergy Renovation, has completed in the past five years, it's hasn't been unusual for more than $200,000 in improvements to be put into a property.

Roughly 80 percent of the wallboard is replaced in a home during a project with upgrades such as adding vaulted ceilings, leveling floors or putting on extra rooms, according to Andy Christopherson. He's part of the second generation of the business and oversees land acquisition and manages construction.

"We're reconfiguring homes to today's demand," he said.

The renovated homes have been acting as model homes for new developments and for real estate agents who are looking for contractors to remodel homes for sale or recently purchased, said Brenda Christopherson.

Synergy Renovation completed 13 homes last year and is aiming for 20-25 done this year. As the service continues, renovations are getting more extensive, Keith Christopherson said. One completed remodel in the Montgomery Village area was listed for $411,000, but most of the other properties the company renovated are sold in the $800,000--$900,000 range.Smaller projects reduce risk

Synergy Communities is focusing on smaller developments than Christopherson Homes did. Rather than projects rarely less than 50 homes and often more than 100, Synergy Communities is targeting "boutique," site-selective projects with unit counts in the low double digits.

Smaller developments are less capital-intensive and allow the company to start and finish projects more quickly, according to Keith Christopherson.

"These are all factors that will help insulate our position when the market goes into a correction mode," he said.

Formerly called Synergy Homes, the homebuilding company first started acquiring properties in 2012--2013. It now has five projects in hand and plans to buy four more in Sonoma County. Except for one in Cotati, the rest are in the Santa Rosa area.

Three of the properties purchased in 2012 had entitlements to build homes, but the venture held off on moving the projects forward because the market wasn't ready for them, the principals said. Though a number of properties with entitlements on them have been resold in the past several years, the number of such opportunities that are economically feasible has dwindled significantly, Keith Christopherson said.

"Through the recession, partly entitled or fully entitled projects were not feasible for a lot of properties," he said. First, home values had dropped significantly. And while prices have been rebounding, development costs from local government fees and environmental mitigation still make projects not profitable. That's what has made a number of available entitled properties in the southwest Santa Rosa area challenging to acquire, Mr. Christopherson said.

The first project set to come out of the ground is Sky Vistas at the entry to Valley of the Moon in east Santa Rosa and overlooking the Skyhawk development where Christopherson Homes built 512 homes in the 1990s. Purchased with all project entitlements and paved streets, the Sky Vistas project is set to have 10 semicustom homes with 2,600--4,000 square feet available to buy next summer.

Working with relatively large lots, five are designed to be single-story homes, three to have split levels with a main living floor uphill from more bedrooms and a "bonus area," and two conventional two-story homes. Target pricing is $850,000--$1.2 million.

Demand for homes in that price range are coming partly from lateral moves from smaller or bigger homes in Santa Rosa but increasingly from buyers relocating to the area to work in the growing medical-device and high-technology industry, according to Brenda Christopherson, who worked with design and sales for the homebuilding business over the years.

Another new-home project further out to the horizon is called Fountaingrove Vistas along Fountaingrove Parkway in northeast Santa Rosa. Six designed so far are larger custom homes on more than a half-acre of land each. Fourteen smaller homes are planned to be built at a later date.Demand for single-story homes

Fifteen years ago during the surge in homebuilding in the Santa Rosa area, demand for higher-end homes was in the northeast Fountaingrove area and large multistory homes. But now more buyers -- younger as well as older -- are asking for single-story homes that are within walking distance of stores with daily needs such as grocery, Brenda Christopherson said. Because of that, single-story homes are selling at a premium.

"If you go to other areas where the land is not as expensive, there are more single-story homes," Mrs. Christopherson said.

This demand for single-story homes with "walkability" is going to put pressure on city planning policies from a decade or more ago that have been emphasizing smaller lot sizes and vertical construction, Keith Christopherson said.

"I'm not sure policies are in line with demographics and wants of buyers," he said.New structure, partners

The Christopherson family business has a new corporate structure and new partners. Joining Keith and Brenda Christopherson and their son, Andy, about a year ago were Brian Flahavan, a Santa Rosa-based civil litigation attorney also with two offices in Southern California, and Greg Windisch, who co-founded wine-focused supplier Trilogy Glass & Packaging in Santa Rosa and sold it to TricorBraun in 2011. Mr. Flahavan is contributing legal prowess to the venture, and Mr. Windisch, business-development and brand marketing know-how.

The company has 32 employees, including 20 in the field and eight real estate agents. The field workforce covers rough and finish carpentry, stone and tile work, electrical systems, foundations and some landscaping, largely for the renovation projects. The company subcontracts for cabinets, stone slab fabrication and drywall on renovations and many trade tasks on new homes.

The Christopherson Homes model before the downturn "was appropriate for that time," Brenda Christopherson said. Synergy Group, she said, "is appropriate for this time."

CORRECTION, Sept. 8, 2014: Andy Christopherson's name was misspelled. The number of homes being built will be in the low double digits, rather than low single digits. The original story had incorrect details.

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