In our previous installments of Small Town, Big Tastes we’ve highlighted downtown Prescott dining and local microbreweries, and if you’ve read those you may have noticed a few recurring themes. For one thing, we don’t really use this space to talk about new home design or homebuilding in general. Instead, Small Town, Big Tastes is a place for us to celebrate businesses that share Dorn Homes’ values. Values like commitment to quality, dedication to craftsmanship, and contributing to the community. This is also a place for us to show you some of the things that make Prescott so unique, a small town with all the creature comforts of a big city.

Continuing our series of highlighting unique design features to improve your life, Dorn Homes presents Walden Farms. This article will explore the choices that have shaped Walden Farms, our newest community in Prescott, Arizona.

As we discussed in a recent post, Prescott is fortunate to have a vibrant local art scene. The Mile-High City’s embrace of the arts does not stop there. In fact, Prescott also boasts a lively performing arts pedigree.

Individuals planning their retirement often make the mistake of focusing on only two points on their journeys. The first is the starting point: today. Do I have enough money to retire? How much longer do I need to keep working?

With its mild winters and temperate summers, Prescott is known as one of the premier retirement destinations in Arizona. What may surprise you, however, is that Prescott is also home to a lively local visual art scene. From shops to galleries to local restaurants, the town embraces the arts. In addition to the local galleries and museums, Prescott offers annual festivals, monthly art walks, and numerous art education opportunities. We’ve highlighted some of the more notable events below for those of you interested in joining Dorn Homes in supporting the arts.

The Bryce Canyon offers an open floor plan, with spacious great room and main living areas. See why this is one of our most popular floor plans in Prescott Valley.

When going through the process of designing a kitchen, most homebuyers focus on the three items that take up the most visual real estate: cabinets, countertops, and appliances. These three things will help you establish an overall design theme, rustic, modern, elegant, etc., but your opportunity to wow visitors and design the kitchen of your dreams doesn’t end there. One way you can make bold design choices to really highlight the visual appeal of your kitchen is through the use of a stone, tile, or glass backsplash.

Dorn Homes is pleased to offer a limited new home warranty with every home we build. You will receive a copy of the complete warranty when you purchase your home, and we recommend you read the document carefully. While that document will outline the exact steps for you, should you need to take advantage of the warranty, we’d like to highlight some of the features that make our warranty process easier for homebuyers.

For many homebuyers in Prescott and the surrounding areas, especially those that are near retirement age, a new home is more than just a place to live. It’s a launching pad, a base camp if you will. These homebuyers have spent their working years dreaming of a retirement that centers on travel—both exploring the country around them and welcoming visitors from out of town or out of state. For homebuyers interested in exploring the state of Arizona and the rest of the country, there’s no city quite like Prescott to set up camp.

You may recall our recent post from March titled Small Town, Big Tastes: Downtown. Well, as part of our ongoing efforts to enlighten potential homebuyers about everything Prescott has to offer, we’d like to offer the latest installment in Small Town, Big Tastes: Microbreweries.

One of the most common concerns expressed by homebuyers that are interested in moving to Arizona from out of state is the availability of water. For some homebuyers, like those moving from California, the concerns are frequently grounded in their experiences with water usage restrictions due to the recent drought.

The first rule of real estate, as we’re sure you’ve heard before, is location, location, location. Most homebuyers have a list of criteria that influence where they focus their search efforts. The list is usually made up of things like proximity to work, the quality of the school systems, access to shopping and entertainment, and as we discussed in our interview with Yavapai Regional Medical Center, access to quality healthcare. Once a homebuyer has a general area in mind they can then focus on more specific homes and neighborhoods to make their final decision. But what, you may be wondering, are homebuyers looking for in neighborhood features?

At Dorn Homes careful consideration goes into every design and building choice. You can see it in our award-winning architecture and our extensive design options. One place that you can’t see it is in the air itself.

At Dorn Homes our design process focuses on maximizing our homebuyers’ quality of life. That means building science that improves the quality of your indoor air and building materials that contain low or no volatile organic compounds (VOC). Quality of life is at the heart of architectural design as well, inspiring us to provide open floorplans and purpose-built rooms that ensure our homebuyers are building homes that match their lifestyles. But quality of life doesn’t start or stop at the door to your home; it stretches across your property. Instead of treating your yard as fully separate from your home, think of it as an extended living space.

Our Mission Statement, “Enhancing the lives of all those we touch,” is the driving force behind everything Dorn Homes does. It also means that we have a responsibility to be more than just a homebuilder. It means we have a responsibility to be a community builder. In that spirit, we have reached out to Kenneth Boush with Yavapai Regional Medical Center (YRMC), a not-for-profit healthcare provider, to discuss the role they take in growing and sustaining the community.

The reasons homebuyers decide to move to a small town from a large city are as varied and individual as the homebuyers themselves. Typically, people focus on the accessibility of the outdoors, the sense of community, and the people. But they often resign themselves to the idea that they’ll have to make sacrifices in the variety that living in a big city can bring to life. Especially when it comes to food. Fortunately, in Prescott at least, that’s simply not the case.

Whether you’re a cat person or a dog person, if you have pets you understand just how big of a role they play in our lives. Our four-legged friends (or sometimes winged or scaled) spend more time with us than even our best human friends. That’s why it’s so important to show them the love and affection that they show us every day. And, fortunately for us, Prescott is one of the pet-friendliest cities in Arizona. First off, let’s talk about…

One of the most exciting aspects of building your own dream home is personalization. That means picking out your ideal features, fixtures, and flooring.