From the Editor

As a skinny 10-year-old with thick pigtails and thicker glasses, I had every intention of growing into a glamorous adult. My best friend and I spent hours playing with paper dolls, and we had constructed a future family-and lifestyle-for each of us. My family were the Graysons, headed by a crisp executive and the future me, a sultry brunette with an extensive, if flimsy, wardrobe of Chanel-style suits; we had 12 paper children and lived in an imaginary Victorian mansion with two sets of stairs and a bedroom for every kid. (After years of squabbling with my sister, I could imagine no greater luxury.)

My dreams have evolved a bit since then, including my concept of a dream home. After raising my kids (two, as it turned out) in a big, sprawling house, I downsized four years ago to a tidy little fishing cottage on a pretty bay, deciding that cozy charm and a view of sparkling water were all I'd ever want.

Dream homes have a way of evolving for all of us; that's certainly been the case with our Home & Condo Dream Home, which opens Feb. 21 at Bonita Bay's Estates at TwinEagles in Naples. This is the ninth Dream Home we've created in partnership with the region's building and design professionals; the first was built in 1990, when Southwest Florida's luxury building boom was just beginning. Linda Keller, editor of Home & Condo at the time, says they started the project by inviting three couples who were planning to build an upscale home to an all-day focus group to discuss everything from the floor plan to the furnishings of their ideal home.

Then the magazine assembled a team to construct that vision: The Evans Group of architects, Niemann Wolter Homes, Robb & Stucky Furniture, and Westinghouse, which was just developing one of Fort Myers' first luxury neighborhoods in its new Gateway community. At the first meeting, recalls Linda, the partners looked at each other and realized they were about to begin-on spec-one of the most expensive homes ever built in the region. "I'm telling you, it was one of the scariest things I've ever done," she says. "Somebody said, gee, should we have a contract?" But no one could figure out what should go into the contract, so they sealed the deal on a handshake. Eighteen months later, the home-which had soared from an estimated $600,000 to close to a then unprecedented $1 million-finally opened.

A one-story, 3,600-square-foot structure, it seems almost modest by today's grand standards, but it created the model for every Dream Home since then, from the team approach to benefiting a charity. (The homes have raised close to $1 million for charities; the first year it was the Lee County Alliance of the Arts, and six homes have benefited the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra.)

The next Dream Home, in 1993, reflected the region's rapidly expanding definition of luxury. With 7,400 square feet of space, it was priced at $2.3 million. And rather than growing out of a focus group's specifications, that Dream Home, like all since, was designed to inspire consumers with features beyond their wildest dreams. This year's Dream Home should certainly fulfill that mission. A collaboration between The Bonita Bay Group, McGarvey Custom Homes, R.G. Designs, Robb & Stucky, Architectural Land Design and the magazine, the house has so many astonishing elements that early visitors were rendered speechless several times-especially by the master bathroom, where 90-degree disappearing glass doors opening to a tropical waterfall made many ask if they were still indoors. The house overflows with lavish features and imaginative ideas, including many that could be adapted to more modest homes.

I paid special attention to the outdoor living spaces, with gorgeous furnishings that can withstand the Florida elements, because we recently decided to expand the little house that seemed just perfect a few years ago. Now we're adding an upstairs bedroom and bath with a deck overlooking the bay, and the living room's cottage-style windows are giving way to big expanses of glass that open to a terrace and the bay. Our designer says the house is evolving to a "modern transitional cottage," and we're delighted with that definition of this latest-but I suspect not last-version of our dream.

To learn more about this year's Dream Home, including tour information, call 352-8000 or visit our Web site, www.2004DreamHome.com.