At Magnolia Ridge, we chose to build a single family attached, two home per building site layout, because it offers the economic benefits of a townhome design, with the advantage of bringing in natural light through windows on three sides of every home. By sharing one wall and roof in common fashion, the cost of each home is reduced. In the more common town home layout, there are 3 to 8 homes in one building, with only two homes having the benefit of a side yard and the windows that come along with it.

On average, Americans spend over 70% of their time at home. For this reason, every Magnolia Ridge Home is delivered with a quality Air Conditioning System that incorporates a five inch, thick, MERV 13 air conditioning filter. For those that are unfamiliar with this health strategy, the MERV 13 filters will filter out up to 90% of any 10 micron thick, suspended airborne particles and pathogens like SARS-COV-2 — also known as “COVID 19”. In addition, we also incorporated an ultraviolet light bar in each homes air handler to kill any pathogens moving through the air conditioning system. This second step is a strategy used by many hospitals and clinics to protect workers and patients from airborne pathogens.

According to the EPA, however, the levels of indoor air pollutants are often 2 to 5 times higher than outdoor levels, and in some cases these levels can exceed 100 times that of outdoor levels of the same pollutants. In addition to filtering and introducing ultra violet light, one of the best ways to create better indoor air quality is to bring in fresh outdoor air. Unfortunately, adding straight ventilation increases the amount of work the air conditioning system must do to keep the indoor air cool and dry. Our solution, is to incorporate an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) which conditions the air coming in by using a special kind of heat exchanger that not only transfers heat energy, but it also removes humidity of the outside air before it enters the home through the air conditioning system.

Appliances, lighting, and air conditioning are the heaviest users of energy in a typical home. Our homes are delivered with energy saving appliances, highly efficient decorative LED lighting throughout, as well as a 16 SEER air conditioning system to minimize your energy costs. Moreover, our homes feature hurricane impact, “Low Emissivity” (LoE) windows and doors which means they protect the structure from the damaging elements of a hurricane and minimalize heat transfer from the exterior to the interior of the unit. The heat transfer reduction is accomplished by use of the insulated window frames along with a LoE soft coat within the glass, also known as sputter coating, which is applied in multiple layers of silver between layers of metal oxide, applied in a vacuum chamber. Another feature of the hurricane laminate glass is that 99.9% of UV rays are prevented from entering your home. UV rays (from direct sunlight) are responsible for the fading of furniture, photos and art over time. The laminate glass also significantly reduces sound transmission into your home.

After our homes are built, we have them tested by independent energy consultants to determine the Home Energy Rating System Specification (HERS). This gives our Buyers’ the ability to compare our homes to others, as well as providing them the comfort of knowing how much they can expect to save on their electric bill each month.

Hot, humid, air intrusion into a home with cool air inside causes condensation to gather behind the walls and this is often undetected. Over time, this can lead to mold in the home. The first defense against this is to eliminate any openings that allow hot, humid air to get in the home in the first place. Ventilated attic space is a perfect example of this. In Florida, attics are typically ventilated via screened openings in the soffits and roof vents. However, Magnolia Ridge homes come with open cell spray foam insulation underneath the roof sheathing which allows the attic ventilation to be removed completely. Eliminating the hot humid air in the attic allows the air conditioning ducts located in the attic to move air more efficiently which saves energy.

But more importantly, it keeps condensation from forming on the air conditioning ducts in the attic which can lead to mold. It also prolongs the life of the air conditioning ducts since there is much lower temperature swings in the attic which can cause the ducts to leak air over time. Finally, our construction methods take added precautions to avoid water penetration. A few examples include flashing the concrete block around the windows, and recessing the monolithic slab to reduce hydrostatic pressure at the base of all exterior walls. Our roofing system applies a peel and stick layer underneath the asphalt shingles, effectively doubling the waterproof barrier over that of the more typical shingles over felt paper.

The use of hurricane rated windows, doors (including the front entry and garage doors) provide security not only from the high winds, pelting rain, and airborne debris, but they are also a proven deterrent to unwanted entry. In other words, an intruder attempting to break the glass with a baseball bat, crow bar, or whatever, will likely be unsuccessful. Forced entry prevention is one of the critical requirements of any hurricane rated product.

The community itself will not be gated with traditional fencing and a guard. But the community is provisioned for security gate arms to be installed along with a camera system which will slow down anyone entering the community long enough to have their picture taken and stored on a remote server. An effective deterrent strategy often used in high end neighborhoods. We as the developer, will leave it up to the home owners to decide if they want to implement this security system at the time the Home Owners Association is turned over to them.

At Magnolia Ridge, we made the extra effort to create a Planned Unit Development, which allows our buyers to purchase the homes and lots in a “Fee Simple” fashion. This fee simple title, as well as the HERS Energy rating level, opens up more financing options than homes in other newly built communities.

For Magnolia Ridge, we are accepting contracts with loan contingencies. And of course, we prefer to use lenders that we already know have a large portfolio of competitive loan products. We also know that it is the loan approval process that often creates Buyer anxiety, so we want to be sure the process is an enjoyable one – as it should be. For all these reasons, we have incentives for our Buyers’ to use Trustco Bank – our Preferred Lender.

The Home Owner Association will cut the grass and maintain the landscaping and irrigation for the entire site so you don’t have to.

All of our Magnolia Ridge homes come with a low power, structured wiring system with a 14 inch home run panel located in the kitchen pantry. Each home will have (2) Cat5e phone jacks in the kitchen and master bedroom, and a CAT6 & RG6 to the TV Locations which are located in the upstairs bedrooms and the living room. We also provide an additional electric outlet at a 55” height for those same locations for the wall mounted TVs.

Our homes are delivered with an upgraded warranty because our entire team stands behind our product. For Magnolia Ridge, we provide a 2-10 Home Builder Warranty program that goes well beyond the industry standard, one year material, labor, and workmanship warranty. More specifically, a two year distribution systems warranty provides protection against defects to the means by which electrical, plumbing and mechanical functions are delivered throughout your home. The ten year structural warranty provides protection against structural defects to the designated load-bearing elements of your home.

Our homes are built using Reinforced 3,000 psi Concrete Monolithic Foundation Slab with Recess to Accommodate Concrete Block which reduces water intrusion. Concrete block, rake beam construction in the demising wall all the way to the roof completely separates each unit. Our roof truss system is designed to withstand ultimate wind speeds of 170 MPH. Every opening in our home is hurricane protection rated. And perhaps most importantly, our hip roof design is looked upon favorably by insurance company actuaries – which all translates into lower insurance premiums.

In addition to the one or two car garages offered, our homes include a driveway that allows two cars to park in front of the home/garage without blocking the sidewalk. Also, there are nearby commercial properties with plenty of parking within walking distance of our community, but of course, our Buyers need to be respectful of their rules and policies about parking.

The typical time to build a unit once started is 5 to 6 months. Of course, we cannot be responsible for anything outside of our control. (i.e. material shortages, force majeure, etc.). That said, our interests are aligned with our Buyer’s interests. In other words, the faster we build, the sooner we deliver and move on to the next home. This is what we do.

The process of purchasing a home not yet built does not have to be complicated. We will see to it that all of our Buyer’s questions are answered as they go through the process. We do our best to specify what our Buyer’s will receive before they go into contract because like our Buyer’s — we don’t like surprises either. Our sales team, if not our principals, will take the time to get to know each and everyone of our Buyer’s because that is just how we do things – with pride and quality.

We offer a limited selection of mostly aesthetic options for our Magnolia Ridge homes. Unfortunately, the overall size of the project and price point of these particular homes just doesn’t support kind the kind of resources required to provide a custom home design-build approach. That said, we will listen to all requests and evaluate accordingly, recognizing the parameters of the project design.

Since the early 1960’s, Guardian American has been a developing and building company. Over 50 years of land development and construction experience means we get the job done on schedule, with quality. Thousands of homesites representing hundreds of millions in sales revenue have been delivered to satisfied customers. Our proven track record speaks for itself. Every aspect of this process, from land acquisition, site development, building, and sales is directly managed by our organization. We take pride in our ability to visualize and create communities where families thrive and memories are made. For more information, go to www.guardianamerican.com