After modernizing their custom-built luxury home to the tune of $300,000, a local real estate executive and nursing educator are ready to hand off the property to a new family.
Mitch and Sherri Fannon listed their house in the Standing Stones Development in Kentwood for nearly $1.9 million on Oct. 11 through broker John Postma of Re/Max Grand Rapids.
Mitch Fannon is founder and CEO of the Cascade Township-based commercial real estate firm The Principle Group. Sherri Fannon, who holds a doctorate in nursing practice, is an assistant professor of nursing and health care simulation educator at Grand Valley State University’s Kirkhof College of Nursing.
The 6,400-square-foot mansion was designed by Wayne Visbeen, the founding architect at Grand Rapids-based Visbeen Architects. Visbeen and his wife, Marcia Visbeen, lived there for a decade after it was completed in 2004 and sold it in 2014 to the second owner.
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Constructed by DeHaan Builders, the home is in the Forest Hills Northern school district. It has five bedrooms, four-and-a-half baths, a three-car attached garage, a half-acre lot with a spacious yard and large back patio, a screened porch, and a basement fitness room, kitchenette, billiard room and home theater.
Property owners in Standing Stones pay an annual association fee of $975.
The Fannons, who have three children in their 20s and 30s, are the third family to live in the house after buying it in 2017. Their youngest child, who was 17 when they bought the property, has now left home.
“We became empty-nesters about five months ago, and so we were like, ‘Wow, we don’t use this floor, we don’t use this floor — maybe we should think about getting a smaller house,’” Mitch Fannon said. “This is a great house for a family, but for two people, it’s kind of silly.”
Not a ‘cookie cutter’ home
Fannon said he was initially skeptical about owning a home in a subdivision in Kentwood, but upon touring it with Postma six years ago, he was drawn to the property’s innate beauty.
“We looked at a couple of other homes, and they were just so cookie cutter,” he said. “We walked in (to this place), and the bones of the house, the curved doors, the trim — it was just so overwhelmingly hard to take in. That night, we wrote John the offer for the house. I think Wayne did a really good job with creativity on this house.”
Fannon said he and his wife have found the place is roomier on the inside than it looks, which makes it perfect for entertaining.
“The home and outside patio area are just perfect if you want to entertain,” he said. “The double doors, around the back of the patio, lead down to the kitchenette in the basement, and we’d have our bartender down there, and it allows people to flow through the patio system, under the trellis, up on the patio, by the kitchen area here. It flows really well for entertaining. We would have 50, 60 people here, no problem at all.”
Fannon said his initial concern over the location melted away almost as soon as his family moved in.
“It’s the best location ever,” he said. “It is close to the malls, it’s close to the (Cascade Hills Country Club), shopping. It is so incredibly convenient. Anybody who wants to be anywhere in this area, this is a central location.”
Putting their stamp on it
After about two years of owning the house, Fannon said his family decided it was “a little too closed off.”
They hired Grand Rapids interior designer Leslie Bowen to redesign the main floor in alignment with their preference for open-space living.
“We spent about $300,000 on modernizing it,” he said. “We pulled down a wall and some pillars, so it opened up the entire main level.”
The home became instantly brighter because nearly all of the windows on the main floor are now visible from most vantage points.
“You can be at the front door and see almost the entire main floor,” he said. “You can see the kitchen on your left, the dining on your left, you can see the living room on the right, the other dining room on the right, and see into our office.”
They removed the orange tile in the back of the house and all of the carpet, installing Brazilian cherry floors throughout the main floor. They matched the hardwood to the original planks in the foyer, kitchen and dining room, using some extra boards they found in the attic.
“(The flooring was) hard to get, because the original floors that were in here, that manufacturer went out of business, and so I ended up finding a guy in Tennessee who specializes in matching floors,” Fannon said. “I sent him a sample of what I had, and about a month later, he called me and said, ‘OK, I know where I can get it. How much do you need?’”
The flooring took about eight months to arrive, including manufacturing, shipping, cutting, milling and scraping to match the original color, pattern and medium-gloss sheen.
As part of the main floor renovation, the Fannons also repainted all the walls, replaced the window draperies and blinds and changed out the lighting.
They redid the kitchen with a new tile backsplash, cabinet hardware and granite countertops, and pulled out a bench in the dining room to swap in a beverage station.
Outside, they replaced about half the landscaping, as some of the bushes were overgrown, and reinstalled the bluestone patio with new grouting and sealing.
Upstairs, they updated the primary bathroom and enlarged the primary suite by knocking down a wall of an adjoining office to make it bigger.
The second floor has two other bedrooms and a second bathroom, and the third floor has the remaining two bedrooms and full bathroom.
During COVID-19 lockdowns, the Fannons converted a basement guest room into a fitness center.
“We pulled out the beds, had the glass walls installed, put in a gym-style flooring, and then ordered the equipment,” he said. “It’s just the perfect size for one to two people to be in there, either on the elliptical or lifting weights. And the room feels a lot bigger because of the mirrors.”
The property also features a home automation system for lighting, climate, security and video, as well as radiant heat, Loewen custom windows, a garage lift to the attic storage, and epoxy-coated garage floors.
‘Hanging tight’ for a sale
Fannon said he and his wife are flexible about the length of time it will take to sell the home, as well as where they’ll live next.
“We’re just kind of hanging tight,” he said. “The market is changing so drastically and so frequently (that) the inventory is going to be changed out every couple of weeks. We’re pretty flexible, so it allows us to have some freedom to say when it sells, (then) we’ll figure out what we’re going to do.”
Postma, their broker who specializes in high-end homes, said he’s experienced a slowdown in sales this year, with homes at this price point staying on the market longer.
“There’s still a shortage of luxury homes, but interest rates have certainly impacted buying power,” he said, noting that this listing might “stay on the market a little bit longer.”
However, Postma said he hopes it will be a selling point that the home is priced low compared to the cost it would take to reproduce it with today’s “dramatically” higher construction costs.
“Today, if we had to build that home, we’d be pushing close to $4 million,” he said. “I think construction costs on a home like that would be close to $800 a square foot, and we have it on the market for just under $300.”
Fannon said he and his family will carry with them many fond memories of the place.
“We are going to miss it, but it is going to be a perfect home for a family,” he said.
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