Roubion at San Ramon

John Laing Homes' Bay Area Debut Makes a Statement Marked by Quality, Passion and Creativity

By Karen Henry

What happens when passion and creativity meet experience and a commitment to excellence? For John Laing Homes, the result is Roubion, a community of 72 executive-level, single-family homes located in the scenic hills of San Ramon. Priced in the $2-3 million range, Roubion features 4,400 to 6,600-square-foot homes with up to five bedrooms and five and a half baths each, on lots ranging from just over a third of an acre to two and a half acres. The community marks John Laing Homes' debut in the Bay Area, the last major market in California in which the Newport Beach-based home builder did not have a presence.

John Laing is already recognized througtout the industry for its customer-focused approach and innovative homes. But with Roubion, the company wanted to do something more than build the next luxury community in the Bay Area. John Laing Homes wanted to make a statement. To make that statement, though, the company needed the right leader. After a three-year search for a proven leader to head the company's expansion into the Bay Area, Larry Webb, CEO of John Laing Homes, found the perfect fit in Roger Menard. The two had worked together at KB Homes in the 1980s and have maintained a close friendship ever since. Webb knew how successful Menard had been throughout his career-building communities in the Bay Area and was particularly impressed with the projects he'd done while working for SummerHill Homes. So when Menard retired in 2005, Webb jumped at the chance to convince his friend and former colleague to hold off on retirement and join the John Laing team. Only one week after he retired, Menard did just that. He now serves as President of John Laing Homes in the San Francisco Bay area.

From the beginning, the two shared a common vision for Roubion - to create a flagship product for John Laing Homes that exceeded each and every home buyer's expectations. But for Menard, there was an added, more personal, motivation. The luxury community would serve as Menard's swan song - a culmination of his 30-year career in the Bay Area housing industry and a tribute to the region in which he grew up and has lived his entire life. From the moment he saw the 72 lots, he knew he could make Roubion a community unlike any other. Apparently, so did Webb. "I told Larry right from the beginning that I was going all out," Menard says. "He supported me 100% from the very beginning."

Menard took a three-pronged approach to developing a design concept for the homes and the community. His first goal was to address the specific needs of his target market. Knowing that one of the markets he would need to focus on was the baby boomers, creating one-story homes on flat lots was critical. And because most of the lots were tiered, he asked the John Laing engineers to flatten the lots as much as possible. The engineers were able to increase the number of flat lots from 20 to more than 60. Menard's years of market research in the area had also taught him that Bay Area residents wanted larger bedrooms and private bathrooms for their children, so he insisted that each home design include oversized secondary bedrooms with their own bathrooms and walk-in closets. Additional "must-have" features included prep kitchens and wine rooms.

His second goal was to "create as many different personalities with the homes" as he could, providing home buyers with a truly custom feel. But he also wanted to make sure the homes fit into the Bay Area landscape - inside and out. "I'm a West Coast kid, and I felt like these homes needed to reflect the Western lifestyle," he says. "I wanted an open feeling rather than a closed up feeling with kitchens and family rooms oriented to the backyard and to open spaces that flow together."

To help bring his vision to life, Menard assembled a team of top-notch professionals from all areas of the industry. He selected Dan Hale of Hunt Hale Jones Architects to complete the home designs. "Dan and his team of architects are phenomenal. I chose them because they had a lot of experience with master-planned developments, and I really felt they could achieve the objective I was after." For the interior design, Menard tapped Costa Mesa- based Creative Design Consultants. "I have a 25-year history with CDC," he says. "They picked out all of the details from the floor to the crown moulding." He called on an old friend, Peter Marks, the Director of Wine, and Marks' colleagues, at Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food, and The Arts in Napa to help inspire and design the wine rooms, kitchens and prep kitchens. And finally, to ensure that each house was in harmony with nature, Menard enlisted the expertise of Marsha Cheung Golangco, a feng shui consultant, who has worked with Menard on almost every one of his developments over the last 15 years.

Menard says that one of the most rewarding - and critical - aspects of the project was bringing all of the team members together at various stages of the building process for frame walks. "Our whole team came together - our consulting teams, architects, structural engineers, senior people who were involved in the project and the interior designers." Together, they evaluated the overall visual and structural impact of the home and made changes to maximize the spaciousness, livability and flow. "This is really the pulling together of a lot of tremendous experience in this business," he says.

While the architecture, design and landscape certainly provide Roubion with powerful visual impact, Menard took the development one step further. His third goal for Roubion was to help provide the foundation for a vibrant, active community - one that promotes the California wine country lifestyle. To do that, he again enlisted the help of the experts at Copia. In lieu of the standard recreation center, John Laing and Copia have partnered to develop culinary centers at Roubion. Copia program directors will host a series of specialized seminars for Roubion home buyers on wine tasting and stocking, culinary skills development and herb garden planting. Each Roubion homeowner will also be offered a Copia specialized membership, which will be customized to fit their individual needs. According to Menard, Roubion and Copia complement each other perfectly. Both embody "a casually elegant lifestyle that embraces wine, cooking, gardening and the arts," he says.

Roubion has certainly helped John Laing Homes to make a splash in the Bay Area market, but it's only the first of many waves. According to Menard, John Laing has tremendous

growth expectations for the area. Over the course of his five-year contract, Menard expects to have John Laing Homes in position to build around 1,000 units a year in new home communities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, from Santa Rosa to the north to Salinas in the south. He says that 20% of the John Laing developments in the Bay Area will be in the high-end, executive luxury division with prices up to $3 million, and 80% will be in what Menard calls the value-driven category, with prices in the $600-900,000 range. "We have 27 different products, and we already have almost 4,000 lots in our pipeline in the Bay Area in 12 different locations," he says.

Menard is excited to continue John Laing's expansion into the Bay Area, but perhaps the biggest reward for him will be watching families move in to John Laing's flagship development, and his swan song - Roubion - and learning that he has, indeed, exceeded each home buyers' expectations. With views of Mount Diablo and the San Ramon Valley, Menard says, "You feel like you're on top of the world here. These homes and their designs really reflect what I consider to be the California and Bay Area lifestyle for an executive family. Everyone involved in this project seemed to be inspired by this passion. We all wanted to do something we could be proud of for the rest of our lives. These are the best homes I've ever built."

Roubion is located at 3202 Ashbourne Circle, San Ramon, CA,
94583. For more information about the development, call (925) 621-
2184. For more information about other John Laing developments in the Bay Area, contact John Laing Homes at 6800 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 180, Pleasanton, CA, 94566, or visit their website at johnlainghomes.com

"Great projects start with great clients. Roger and everyone at John Laing Homes make up one of the most outstanding development teams that I've had the opportunity to work with." - Dan Hale, AIA, Principal, Hunt Hale Jones

"Roger has the unique ability to not only clearly articulate his vision, but to allow the design team to execute on it with their creativity and expertise." - Dan Hale, AIA, Principal, Hunt Hale Jones

"One of the challenges for the Roubion design team was how to best redefine executive living in Northern California while maximizing the opportunities that existed on the site. Roger allowed us to push the envelope and truly design site-specific semi-custom homes inspired by the elegant Old World architecture of the San Francisco peninsula." - Dan Hale, AIA, Principal, Hunt Hale Jones

January 2007 Builder Architect Edition Issue

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