Jared Bensky Discusses the Wycliffe Way - Part 1

Welcome to our two part feature with Wycliffe Homes’ VP Development Jared Bensky. We visited the Wycliffe Decor Centre and also discussed some of Wycliffe’s upcoming communities. In Part 1 of our interview with Jared Bensky, we focus on Wycliffe’s “made-to-measure” philosophy when designing and decorating a home.

Newinhomes (NIH): So, tell us more about designing and decorating a Wycliffe home.

Jared Bensky (JB): Wycliffe has a made to measure program. We don’t put a time limit on the interviews with the customers - whether it’s a $1.7 million product or a $299,900 product. We’re about as close as you can get to a custom home builder.

The first thing, before our customers even come to us, they go to Paris Kitchens - our kitchen supplier since the beginning of time. They have an incredible showroom. Paris has all of our kitchen specs for every house and our customers work directly with the kitchen designer at Paris. Paris sells a kitchen better than Wycliffe sells a kitchen - that’s why we go with Paris– they’re the experts.

After that, our customers come in for two kinds of interviews. One of them is a construction interview, where we talk about walls, structural, non-structural, doors, ceilings, electrical layout, plumbing, exterior cladding, anything related to the construction of the home.

The second interview is the design interview. That’s where we choose the tiles, paint colours, plumbing fixtures, crown mouldings, people will upgrade hardware, trim, everything.

NIH: How much money do you see people spending on upgrades?

JB:  We’re known in the industry as an upscale builder. Because we build upscale, we cannot produce the number of homes per year that the bigger mass subdivision builders do, since that’s our niche in the market. If our stacked townhouses start at $299,900, then our closest competitor will be at $239,900. Most people come in here and they know they’re buying a Wycliffe product - so it could range anywhere from $5,000 to $200,000 in upgrades, depending on the type of home and the purchaser’s budget.

NIH: When people first come to the decor centre for their design interview, where do they start? Where do you see the most money spent?

JB: This is the order people usually go in: Kitchen, hardwood flooring, tile.

For a smaller boutique community like Fairground Lofts (over 80% sold), people will start with the kitchen. Maybe they’ll get soft-closing drawers, organic and blue box and grey box all in one, taller upper cabinets flush to the ceilings, crown moulding on the upper cabinetry - that’s why we send them to Paris Kitchens.

For hardwood, you may go from a natural stained hardwood floor to a dark stain. A lot of people take out the carpet in the bedrooms on the second floor and replace it with hardwood. Some may upgrade their hardwood to a larger plank, sometimes as big as 7-inch.

NIH: Does this apply to your higher end homes, as well?

JB: At Eight on Bayview, prices are starting at $1,660,000 (and it’s almost sold out, there are only two left), and the standard is such a high spec. Wolf and Sub-Zero appliances are standard. People are walking in there with such a high spec of appliances in the kitchen, there is no need to upgrade. That’s just the Wycliffe way. Most of the changes for a project like that are structural. There are three different configurations you can do with that project. You can have a full floor master retreat on the upper floor, or cut it into two separate oversized bedrooms, or you can have a master and a library.

Another example is our community in Kleinburg, a project we finished two years ago. We did 88 made-to-measure homes there, all of them over $1.2 million.

NIH: Tell us more about the decor centre employees.

JB: They work directly for us. They conduct all the interviews in our decor centre. They walk our customers through every facet of the house, right down until occupancy. People come in, they need all the help they can get - that’s why we don’t put a time limit on the process. These homes in Kleinburg, some reached over 6,000 square feet - it takes multiple, multiple interviews. We’re not rigid. If there’s something that is not here, we’ll find it for you. Come with a sample, we’ll find it for you. You can’t find a sample, we’ll find it for you. Wycliffe doesn't say no. It’s very rare that you walk into a decor centre that doesn’t say “bronze, silver, gold, platinum - four packages, you pick.”

We’re a made to measure builder. Take Fairground Lofts; I can’t change where the windows are, and I can’t change where the doors are, and I can’t change where the stairs are, but I can change everything else.

Stay tuned - Part 2 of our discussion with Jared Bensky, where we discuss a couple of Wycliffe Homes’ new communities, is coming soon!