A “Vision Book” series is used to focus

A “Vision Book” series is used to focus potential buyers on homes in Habersham, a traditional neighborhood development (TND) in Beaufort County, South Carolina. The beautifully illustrated custom book series by Design Traditions in Atlanta explains the town planning and architectural concepts that went into creating Habersham and then allows sales prospects to look at streetscapes with actual home elevations. This Vision Book series has five parts: 1) The actual Vision Book with renderings of streetscapes, a land plan, profiles of the developers, builders, land planners, architects and other members of the project team, and sample home plans; 2) A book depicting the “developer driven” parts of the project, including major parks, monuments and public spaces; 3) The home plan library; 4) Working drawings for the home plans; 5) A marketing book with examples of everything that the project sales and marketing people will need — brochures, signage, mail pieces — to ensure a sales message unified with the development vision. For a major, 275-acre project like Habersham, the Vision Book series requires thousands of hours of work to put together, says Stephen Fuller of Design Traditions. The concept was invented by Design Traditions for conventional master planned communities, but recently has been employed in Trillium (Cashiers, North Carolina), a TND that, like Habersham, was designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company. The Vision Book system makes it easier to market the New Urbanism, says Habersham developer Robert Turner. Buyers can quickly identify the type of unit they are looking for, then scan a variety of elevations. Once the choice is narrowed, specific home plans are examined. “It’s a neat way to get the buyer to focus in 10 minutes on what they need to think about,” explains Turner. The system must be working — Turner sold 65 lots prior to completion of any model homes. “The conversion ratio has been high,” he reports.