Enrico and Sophia have endured a testing few years. In December of 2019, Enrico and Sophia fled their Adelaide Hills home with nothing but the clothes on their backs while the Cudlee Creek fires ripped through the region destroying more than 150 homes, including their family home of 20 years.
A pizza oven and ceramic vase were the only remnants left from the inferno.
Fortunately, Enrico is a firm believer in investing time and money to ensure their insurance policies are always up to date. Enrico likes to think of those insurance policies as assets rather than services. And ultimately, it was this commitment and initiative that allowed them to forge a new future with a brand-new home by Metricon.
“When we first bought our home in the Adelaide Hills 20 years ago, we fell in love with the location and the breathtaking views, not the house itself. It was a lot smaller than the house we live in now. We saw it as an incomplete project that we wanted to work on, and over the years we ended up extending the property to cater to our lifestyle and needs.”
“We added on several verandas, outdoor entertaining areas and leisure spaces. We spent a lot of our time in those outdoor spaces when entertaining because we felt like the home was too small for us when there were a few guests.”
When the fire had subsided and they took a moment to assess the damage, they knew they would look to rebuild in the same location – regardless of the despair they felt from losing their home and favourite possessions.
Enrico immediately contacted his home insurance provider, and within days of the fire he had engaged Metricon South Australia to start the process of building a new home.
“We never shopped around for another builder. We had already done our homework on Metricon several years earlier and when we knew that we wanted to stay in the location and had accepted the losses that required us to fully rebuild, they were immediately front of mind.”
After considering the surroundings and their desire to have a large single-storey home, they settled on the Denver 43 – a stunning ranch-style home with a lasting presence across a wide block.
“The Denver 43 design was the perfect blank canvas for us.”
“We said at the very beginning, this is just too big to envisage on paper. We need the flexibility to be able to make subtle changes throughout the process and Metricon absolutely delivered on that promise. Nothing was ever too hard.”
“Studio M is also such a great eye-opener for people who are new to building like Sophia and I were. The Studio M experience and Metricon display homes offer so much variety and showcase such a vast variety of fittings, fixtures and design details – it made the process easy and pain-free.”
Enrico and Sophia worked together with the Metricon team throughout the build to make variations to the Denver design to make it truly unique to them.
With more than six variations, lasting over three pages each, Enrico and Sophia are now thrilled with their new home.
Variations included swapping out the veneer doors to glass doors throughout the home, reworking the leisure room to a temperature-controlled wine room, turning the third garage into a working studio, adding additional decorator lighting throughout the home, upgrading fittings and fixtures, tile variations and a stand-out recessed wall to highlight Sophia’s leadlight pieces of art.
Enrico and Sophia were extremely hands-on throughout the build and said that interaction was critical to the success of their completed home.
“We were very fortunate in what was an extremely unfortunate circumstance in that when our house was destroyed by the fire, a house directly across the road from us was untouched and available for rent. We were able to secure that rental property for the duration of our build, so I was so close to the action and able to oversee the progress every day.”
“Sophia and I would take coffee, lunch and snacks to the tradies on-site and we developed a relationship with them over the duration of the build. I got to see firsthand what they were doing for the day, ask any questions and chat through what we were thinking. Sometimes it would prompt small changes and it was that interaction and ease of communication that was critical for us.”
“When you give people love and time like we did to everyone on our site, you get it back in spades and we believe the finished product reflects that.”
While the Denver 43 design caters for a large or growing family as the ultimate family retreat, Enrico and Sophia have made sure that every room in the home is used to its full potential.
“I couldn’t tell you a favourite room because we spend time in every room – the whole home is furnished and able to be enjoyed. We will often have a pre-dinner drink and each night we pick a different room in the house to sit in – we didn’t have that flexibility in our old home.”
The four-bedroom home includes a room for their grandchildren, one for their son who lives in Tasmania and one for their daughter and her husband.
“We have enough room for everyone to visit and be comfortable. To be able to have everyone together under one roof is truly joyful.”
While most people would not consider building a new home immediately after such a tragedy, both Enrico and Sophia are extremely positive about the future and about their experience with Metricon.
“On the day of handover, I said to Ryan that I’d already picked our next Metricon house if we were ever faced with another unfortunate situation.”
“So, when people ask if we would ever build with Metricon again, the answer is yes. We would absolutely build with Metricon again.”
Enrico and Sophia's Denver 42 was recently awarded 'Best Project Home' at the 2021 HIA-CSR South Australian Housing and Kitchen & Bathroom Awards, a testament to their journey and the beautiful new home they've created.
More families across Australia choose Metricon to build with than anyone else. We can help you too. Enquire with our friendly team today and get started on your dream home journey.
