Building a home anywhere can be a challenge and when you tell home buyers of the option to build a home in Panama, most people run away so fast that they leave their shadow behind! For me and a few friends of mine that have had the experience, we find it quite rewarding to create our dream homes from a blank canvas. In this case, ours is a lot in Panamonte Estates that I acquired earlier this year.
I recently sold some land up in the higher altitudes of Alto Quiel where a client of mine is now building his dream home. In the process of selling the land, I introduced him to my architect and his Father who are my design/build team. He wisely selected this same team and his home is now under construction on the 3 acre estate site.
OK, so if you are still with me on building, we have a number of lots in various subdivision that can be purchased at a discount from what the developers originally sold them for as a lot of people started speculating with these lots and or their plans changed and they are willing to take a loss in order to unload the property. I also have estate sized lots of 1 to 1.5 acres with underground utilities, roads and in a gated community for between $195,000 and $368,000. There are also subdivisions where you can still find nice lots for under $75,000. I like one in particular near the mountain home pictured above called Boquete Plantation where you can buy a lot for $88,000 with underground utilities, paved road, basically ready to build. Lots start at a quarter acre and some can be assembled for larger estate development.
Anyway, here is where the fun begins when your foundation outline boards go up and the lines are drawn tight to set the foundation wall locations. After 3 months of reviewing design drawings and tweaking every detail to limit any change orders, here we are finally, ground breaking time! You need to have some experience in this process and have a really good architect like mine to walk you through detailed 3 D animation of the interior and exterior of the home on CAD (Computer Assisted /Design) software. It is not cheap but as they say, you get what you pay for and I am really happy that I have limited my anxiety level buy doing all the work that I could up front.
WEEK ONE
So, here is what it will look like when we are done.
Our Mediterranean/Tuscan design came in at under 3,500 square feet of total area and we will have significant upgraded finishes throughout the house, truly our dream home here in Boquete. We have purchased high quality roof tile imported from Spain and high density porcelain floor tiles imported from Italy. We are using some flat slate for portions of the face of the house that comes from the interior of Panama and our cabinetry will all be custom made out of Panamanian Almond wood. Another important part of the home is the window system and we have opted for the German style commonly refereed to by the manufacturer Koemmerling. These are Tilt & Turn windows which are manufactured with German Roto Hardware. These windows can both swing in and tilt in with a simple turn of an ergonomical handle. We believe that light is the soul of your home and air is the blood so we spent a lot of time on making sure that the windows allow for both maximum natural light and air circulation.
On Monday we had a full crew on site and my builder pledged to have the home finished in 10 months so we are planning our timeline for acquiring plumbing and lighting fixtures to insure that they are on site when needed, the same will be done when needed for the rest of our appliances. As you can see, the roof tile is already staged in the rear of the site and the floor tiles are in storage as well.
So, as Teddy Roosevelt said when he visited Panama for the building of the Canal “Make the dirt fly!!”
Roosevelt “teddy” bears tackled their digging with the jingle: “To finish this great work / We need no foreign aid, / For we can do it all ourselves / With spirit and with spade.”
WEEK TWO
I will be posting progress photos and more of our dream home and what our Design/Build Team is doing to insure that every detail is worked out.