Whether or not he has a lucky dog, winner Milton O'Bryant of Midland, Texas, now has the keys to the fully furnished home on the Chesapeake Bay. But the dream isn't O'Bryant's alone. It's the culmination of more than a year of hard work--and fantasizing--by an expert team including Sorg, a landscape architect, an interior designer, a construction crew and a project manager.
The 2,800-square-foot house itself has a dreamy quality. With a silvery roof in three steeply pitched sections and a white exterior, the home's clean lines reflect the pristine bayside Maryland landscape. The result, said interior designer Linda Woodrum, "is almost mesmerizing ... almost like it's floating out there in middle of marsh grass ... mysterious and unexpected and it takes your breath away."
Sorg said she chose the white exterior "to speak to the purity of the area and the land itself."
Sorg, of Sorg and Associates in Washington, D.C., had reason to make an emotional connection--she and landscape architect James van Sweden were among the three owners of the plat of land where the dream house now sits, and they both own neighboring homes. The two are friends who have worked together since 1986.
Van Sweden of Oehme, van Sweden and Associates in Washington, fell for the lot because it reminds him of the Netherlands, home of his ancestors. He mimicked the neighborhood landscape and the Eastern Shore's natural beauty with a meadow-like garden.
"I didn't want anything pretty and gardenesque," he said. "It had to fit in with Eastern Shore properties. I wanted there to be native plants as much as possible and natural as possible and fit into the existing landscape out there on the bay."
He also designed 4,000 square feet of decks to gracefully bring the elevated house down to grade--the house is in a flood plain and had to be raised several feet. "This is such a significant architectural structure," said Woodrum, of TS Hudson Interiors, a Hilton Head, S.C., firm. "It has a very strong personality, a very definite look and feel to it."
Woodrum responded to the strong personality by trying to bring the outside in--using a color palette found in the blue of the water and the earth tones of the landscape. She said the result is a home that is "casual but refined." The house has blue hardwood floors and is furnished in silvery colors. The same themes are carried out in an accompanying guest cottage.
Among the highlights of the house are a spiral staircase that connects a loft with the main level, glass doors on the main level that open to the waterfront deck, and fireplaces in the kitchen, the living room and the first-floor master bedroom.
The term "dream home" reflects the freedom the designers felt without working with demanding clients. With many of her regular projects, Sorg said, the wife wants one thing and the husband another. This house offered the freedom of a single vision--her own.
"I sort of designed it to the style I would like," Sorg said, "but partly I was thinking about your average American family." This was the first HGTV dream home for Sorg and van Sweden. Woodrum has worked on four previous dream homes. The contest is in its sixth year--previous homes have been in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Beaufort, S.C., Rosemary Beach, Fla., Nehalem, Ore., and Camden, Maine.
The contest has grown significantly since its first year. More than 11.2 million people entered the 2002 contest--nearly double the 6.6 million entries from the previous year.
The contest has aimed to do something a little different every year. This year, the "Doggie Dream Home" mirrors the house. Sorg used her dog Lucy for inspiration and measured the Labrador retriever's eye level to make sure a dog could look out the window while standing up. "It's such a special job," Woodrum said. "I don't think there's a better job you can do doing interior design."
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