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Overwhelming hidden costs live in HGTV's Dream Home
Overwhelming hidden costs live in HGTV's Dream Home

Seeing HGTV's 2006 Dream Home on TV or taking a virtual tour of it on your computer, it's fun to imagine yourself reading by its rustic stone fireplace, pausing now and then to gaze out the windows at the Blue Ridge Mountains all around.

But take it from John Groszkiewicz, the Erie County man who won the 2003 Dream Home: Winning it doesn't mean you can afford to live there.

The $2 million, 5,700-square-foot cedar and stone house in Lake Lure, N.C., will be given away to a person whose name is selected from nearly 40 million Internet and mail entries expected between Jan. 1 and Feb. 17.

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The winner will also get a matching Doggy Dream Home, a 2007 GMC Yukon and $250,000 in cash from Lending Tree to help pay the tax bill of $700,000 or more.

That big bill from the IRS is the main reason that Mr. Groszkiewicz and six of the other nine winners have ended up selling their Dream Homes. The first time Mr. Groszkiewicz and his wife Karen visited their $1 million house in Mexico Beach, Fla., HGTV officials told them that actually living in the house wasn't what the contest was all about.

"They told us the dream's not so much the house. The dream is what happens after you sell the house," he said this week.

"Our vision of the dream is that it enables you to do what you want to do," said HGTV spokeswoman Emily Yarborough.

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But the winner of the 2005 house apparently isn't ready to give up on his dream. Don Cruz moved from suburban Chicago to Tyler, Texas, to take possession of his dream home, a lakefront property valued at $1.5 million, plus furnishings. But taxes on his winnings are expected to total more than $650,000, and local officials have slammed the door on Mr. Cruz's plan to pay his bills by renting the boathouse and a master bedroom.

In a recent interview, Mr. Cruz said he's still living in the house in Tyler and has no plans to leave, even as April 15 looms.

"We plan to stay," he told the Associated Press. "God will provide. We'll say a prayer, turn it over to him and he provides. It'll all work out."

The fiscal math of the Dream Home is daunting: Even if you survive the initial tax crunch, there's the annual expense of local property taxes, plus maintenance and upkeep.

The Groszkiewiczes and their four children visited their house several times before selling it shortly after Labor Day 2003 for around $800,000.

"I would have loved to move down there," said Mr. Groszkiewicz, adding that being in the actual house was "a hundred times better" than the virtual tour on the Web.

The couple met with tax advisers to see if there was any way they could afford to keep the house, but none of the options looked attractive.

"If we had rented it, it wouldn't have been our house," he said.

Then, after they sold it, the couple were audited twice by the IRS.

"The Saturday after Christmas, we got two letters from the IRS. One said we were being reaudited. The other said they owed us 18 cents," Mr. Groszkiewicz said.

Alan Marler, Associated Press photos
HGTV's Dream Home, a 5,700-square-foot mountain home perched atop a ridge in the Blue Ridge foothills near Lake Lure, N.C., will be awarded to one of three finalists on April 22.
Click photo for larger image.
TO ENTER THE DREAM HOME CONTEST:

Go to www.hgtv.com or mail a post card to: HGTV Dream Home Giveaway, Box 52943, Knoxville, TN 37950. For a virtual tour of the home, go to www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dream_home/.


The Dream House will be featured during several hours of HGTV programming, and in a virtual tour on the network's Web site.
Click photo for larger image.

The 2003 Dream Home in Mexico Beach, Fla., was won by John Groszkiewicz of Erie County.
Click photo for larger image.

Kathi Nakao, the 2004 winner, spent several extended vacations at the home she won in St. Mary's, Ga., before selling it in July.

"Ordinary people cannot keep a home like that," she said from Sacramento, Calif., where she lives. "I think it's meant to change your life, more than that they [HGTV] expect you to keep it."

The Lake Lure house's assets are now being shown off during several hours of HGTV programming, climaxing with a live broadcast April 22 in which one of three finalists will be given the key to the home.

Hopeful entrants can take 360-degree Internet tours of its rooms; the truly eager can even travel to Lake Lure and walk through the house, which has a large covered porch and terrace for outdoor living, and separate upper-level guest quarters. A wine cellar, exercise room, sauna and game room with Pioneer Elite plasma television hanging on the wall also grace the home.

Atlanta-based Land Resource Companies is the developer of Grey Rock at Lake Lure, the 4,000-acre community to be built around this year's Dream Home. For the company, it's a return engagement -- the Georgia house won by Ms. Nakao two years ago was also in one of its developments.

Spokesman Cameron McLemore said Grey Rock received 6,000 inquiries the day it was announced as a Dream Home site. Mr. Groszkiewicz, 44, said he had heard that even years later, people still drive by and gawk at the Dream Homes.

"That's not me," he said, adding that he and his wife were happy to be out of the spotlight.

After they won the Dream Home, they became celebrities in Lake City, Erie County, the nearby town where they lived at the time.

"We couldn't go grocery shopping for a while. People said, 'Hey, it's them!' "

But that passed quickly and it had nothing to do with their move to Fairview, 11 miles away. The couple had been thinking about moving before they won.

With the proceeds from the Dream Home's sale, they sold their 1,400-square-foot house and bought one with 2,400 square feet. They also tore a deck off the new house and added a sun room.

Winning the contest hasn't dramatically changed their lives, Mr. Groszkiewicz said. He has the same job, as a computer programmer for a valve and fitting manufacturer. But his wife, who used to work, is now a stay-at-home mom for their children, ages 6, 7, 12 and 13.

"We paid off all our debts. Being out of debt made the biggest impact," he said.

All else that remains of their Florida Dream Home are dozens of photographs, many still on discs or diskettes. Do they try to win another one?

"I enter once a year. The HGTV people told me it was my Jan. 27 entry that won. So every Jan. 27, I put in one entry," Mr. Groszkiewicz said.

To enter the Dream Home contest, go to www.hgtv.com or mail a post card to: HGTV Dream Home Giveaway, Box 52943, Knoxville, TN 37950. One Internet entry is allowed per day but there is no limit on mail entries. For a virtual tour of the house, go to www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dream_home/.

Lake Lure can be seen through the window in the breakfast nook.
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