Beachland Homes, the new exclusive builder at River Club, held a model home groundbreaking ceremony last week to announce its presence in the community.
The company, a franchise of Arthur Rutenberg Homes, took over the exclusive builder role from Palm Coast Construction in October. It has plans to build 23 new homes priced from $800,000 to $1.2 million on developed lots owned by Ironshore Capital Partners, the real estate investment firm that bought and revived the development several years ago.
Homes will be marketed by Treasure Coast Sotheby’s International Realty, which will have an agent onsite and will be cooperating with outside brokers who bring buyers to the community.
Beachland president John Genoni says the model home and an inventory home built concurrently will be complete next summer, and that he hopes to have contracts on all 23 homes within 18 months.
The Genoni family has homebuilding roots in Brevard and Indian River County going back 45 years. In the 2000s, a predecessor company of Beachland developed Bermuda Club, selling single-family lots to other builders and building the Somerset Bay Condominium section of the subdivision. Michael Thorpe, co-owner of Treasure Coast Sotheby’s sold the family the Bermuda Club land and then marketed and sold the lots and condos, mostly prior to the real estate crash that began in 2007.
“We had a good run,” Thorpe says.
“We have a long positive relationship with Michael Thorpe and we like the Sotheby’s brand,” Genoni says. “That is why we wanted him to handle sales and marketing for the Arthur Rutenberg homes we are building in River Club.
The Rutenberg name is key to Beachland’s plans.
Brothers Arthur and Charles Rutenberg began building homes in Florida in 1953 and found quick success, expanding across the state. They later joined forces with other builders to create U.S. Homes, which grew to be the largest homebuilder in the country.
Arthur Rutenberg left a top positon with U.S. Homes in the 1970s to begin an innovative franchise system that allows independent builders to partner with Rutenberg, adopting its business practices, home models and brand.
The Genonis bought the Indian River County franchise several years ago, gaining access to a builder nameplate with considerable cachet along with 60 years of homebuilding expertise and extensive back office services.
“It is a great system,” says Genoni. “Rutenberg Homes has a reputation for quality and craftsmanship and they have more than 30 models that are actively being built throughout Florida that we will offer. There is a team of 25 designers we can call on to streamline the process of customizing the homes if a buyer wants a larger master bedroom or an additional bedroom or a different roof line.
“I can sit down with the customers and do a sketch of what they want and send that to Rutenberg and the designers will send back a CAD drawing that we can show our buyer [and the building department].
“The designers have walked these homes and are very familiar with all the details, and there are [other Rutenberg builders] across the state who have built the model we may be working on. I can pick up the phone at any time and call them if I have a question about a design or construction detail.
“Rutenberg has done a really good job of building camaraderie and communication among the franchises. There is no competition [since each builder has an exclusive area]. The model home we are building in River Club is a Monaco. If the guy in Tampa has a customer who is interested in that model, he can send them over here to see it and we will treat them just like they were our customer. Same thing if there is a model in Tampa one of our customers is interested in. They can take a two or three hour drive and walk through the house to get a better sense of it.”
“Along with a tremendous nameplate and strong resale value, Rutenberg has a great array of tried and true floors plans that customers can actually go and walk through,” Thorpe says. “Beachland will be offering some of the best home plans in the industry along with streamlined mechanism for selection of finishes, upgrades and custom feature that makes the process easy and logical.”
“As an Arthur Rutenberg builder, we have back office support, software, marketing and other big builder benefits that a small or medium-size builder doesn’t have,” Genoni says. “It puts us into a completely different league.”
The Monaco is a 3,200-square-foot, 3-bedroom-plus-den home with a 3-car garage that will be offered for around $850,000. The spec home Beachland is building is Rutenberg’s Coquina model, which is about the same size and cost.
“I have known the principals of Beachland Homes for 15 years and they are great business people with a great family operation,” says Thorpe, who has extensive experience marketing new home developments on the island. “They are going to do very well here.
We love the Rutenberg brand and Beachland loves the Sotheby’s brand so it is good partnership with a lot of experience and resources that will make this project a success.”
River Club is located between A1A and the Indian River Lagoon, north of John’s Island and South of Palm Island Plantation. Created by well-known Vero Beach developer Mason Simpson about a decade ago, the riverfront community has 179 lots spread across a 120 landscaped acres stretching from A1A to the Indian River Lagoon with 15-acres of lakes. It has a guarded gate, two club houses with pools, tennis courts and guest suites for visiting friends and relatives. Ocean access is directly across A1A, via a public beach access point, adjacent to the Carlton Condominiums.
