Building Custom Homes for Our Future
by Cassidy Mantor
Sunrise Construction is an award-winning custom home builder specializing in luxury homes. Their style ranges from lodge to modern and the company has received multiple COBA awards in recognition of its versatility. Beyond the build, Sunrise is a full-service general contractor bringing your vision to life. They offer additional design services via their in-house design team, and have an interior showroom for clients to sample tile, flooring, hardware, and, as builder Chris Christianson says, just about everything that goes into a home.
If you walk into this house in 40 years, even though we will not be here, the home will be timeless. That’s what Sunrise does.”–Beth Lawrence, Home Owner
Clients come to Sunrise in several different places along their custom home journeys. Some enlist Sunrise’s services from the start and consult with them as early as finding the right lot for their build. Some bring a completed plan that is build-ready. Working with a client through the original architecture and design, as well as the interior design, is the most efficient way Sunrise serves its customers. Communication flows centrally and everyone stays on the same page at all times.
GOLDEN MANTLE: NORTHWEST LODGE
Golden Mantle is a 4,590-square-foot Northwest lodge-style home in Tree Farm that won numerous COBA awards in its category of $2,100,000 to $2,200,000 homes. It won Best Feature, Best Kitchen, Best Master Suite, and Best of Show. The home took ten months to build and is a beautiful example of Sunrise’s craftsmanship and ability to bring existing plans to life.
Beth and David Lawrence already had their land in Bend when they connected with Sunrise. They’d initiated the process themselves and narrowed the choices down to several contractors, including Sunrise. Beth recalls a lunch with Chris when she decided that Sunrise was her builder. “Chris’ character and morals were so evident from the moment we sat down,” she says.
During the building process, Chris took the Lawrences to other homes he’d built in Central Oregon to get a better understanding of features to incorporate into their house. He asked questions about elements like lava rock and fireplaces to hone in on exactly what the Lawrences wanted for their home until he pinpointed exactly what they envisioned. He was, as Beth puts it, a “lifeline” during the process with exceptional communication.
Beth also lauds Chris’ critical eye during the process. While she and her husband visited the site as it was being built and thought it was beautiful, Chris constructively critiqued it and found ways to improve the build. He presented those opportunities to the Lawrences, who then made the final decisions.
The in-house team at Sunrise added interior pieces to the completed plan and introduced a lot of detail. They led the homeowners in their selection of all of the colors for the fireplace stones and the lava rock. The lava rock won the Best Feature award. “The lava rock complements the Northwest lodge style of the home, which really fits into the Central Oregon landscape, especially in Tree Farm where you’re adjacent to the public lands and raw beauty,” explains Chris.
The inspiration for the lava rock came from another home Sunrise had built that the homeowners saw and fell in love with. Sunrise’s lava rock is tighter and jointed together in a more contemporary style compared to the older Sunriver lava rock that had more of a squeezed-out, rough look. Sunrise sources it locally when possible.
The kitchen was rightfully recognized as the Best Kitchen. The homeowners fell in love with a piece of EleMar granite that Sunrise’s team took them to see, and the space grew from there. Chris recalls that the client wanted a professional home kitchen. Sunrise introduced ventilation and Bluestar appliances to meet that criteria.
The house won Best Master Suite as well. The master bath has Rocky Mountain Hardware sandcast bronze backsplashes. For Chris, the master suite was his favorite element to build. “It just feels really comfortable in there. You have to love the urinal in the master bath too,” says Chris.
Golden Mantle has an authentic Central Oregon feel to it, which is a reason it won Best in Show. It has multiple outdoor patios that take advantage of varying weather and climate conditions in Bend. It is also “really cozy feeling,” as Chris puts it, which is exceptional for a home of its size.
Chris attributes the award to the Golden Mantle’s continuity and how well it flows. “Everything talks together,” explains Chris. The stone, granite, lava, and flooring all tie in with each other. Nothing feels disjointed, and nothing feels overdone, which is a tasteful accomplishment since they added quite a lot of stone elements from the original plan, both inside and outside.
“We keep our homes as efficient and green as we can. We aim to balance the budget against the holistic cost to the environment.” –Chris Christianson, Builder, Sunrise Construction
“I still wake up and say, ‘This home isn’t a dream,’” shares Beth. “We relied on Chris’ expertise because he only wants the very best. If you walk into this house in 40 years, even though we will not be here, the home will be timeless. That’s what Sunrise does.”
VERSATILITY: FROM LODGE TO MODERN
Sunrise recently won Best Interior Finish in the $949,000 to $1,100,000 category for a modern home, a testament to their range and versatility. When asked to compare building lodge-style homes with building modern ones, Chris says that they are vastly different.
Where Golden Mantle had millwork, window trims, and a hand touch for the lodge style, the challenge with a modern home is creating unexpected details that still keep the lines clean. Chris cites their recent award-winning modern home that features windows that are black in and black out fiberglass, with no trim. It has a steel fireplace with sleek horizontal lines, in a stylistically stark contrast compared to the hand-selected rock seen in Golden Mantle.
SUSTAINABILITY
One similarity between the lodge and the modern home is that Sunrise built both with low-maintenance landscaping. A driving reason for zero-scape is that Central Oregon is the high desert, and water is scarce in the desert. Chris points out that from his observations from a lifetime of living in Bend, grass is hard to keep green and maintain in the late summer without a ton of water. Sunrise believes that using water to landscape is not the most responsible use of the resource. In Golden Mantle, the homeowners no longer wanted to maintain a large yard and wanted to conserve water. The modern home has a zero-maintenance turf courtyard. It is a vacation home and the artificial grass was a great solution for their goals.
Sustainability and green building are a core component of Sunrise’s goals as a builder contributing to Central Oregon’s future growth. They routinely build to the same standards as Earth Advantage gold, and depending on the project, sometimes have their homes certified. “It’s important to thread the needle using a common-sense approach to green building,” says Chris. “We keep our homes as efficient and green as we can. We aim to balance the budget against the holistic cost to the environment.”
For more information, call 541.504.5831 or visit sunriseoregon.com.
