Why We Bought from Homes for All Seasons

By Concetta C. Sipes

My husband has been going to Garrett County since the age of five. He asked me to marry him at an overlook to the Savage River Forrest. He and I were dedicated to finding a vacation/ retirement home in Garrett County. We love the area and its people.

We spent several summers looking. We wanted to spend a maximum of $200,000. What was available for that amount in Garrett County (and in the Oakland area) was distressing. We could afford to pay more, but we are responsible people who have always agreed to be careful with our finances.  Homes we did like routinely went for a minimum of $300,000 to $400,000 dollars.

Then he took me to Alpine Lake, which is ten minutes west of Oakland in West Virginia (30 minutes from Deep Creek Lake).  It’s a large gated golf course community with its own security force who staff the gatehouse and patrol the complex 24 hours a day. A board of residents control operations through a property manager.

Alpine Lake has a magnificent lodge, hotel, restaurant and the cutest lounge you ever saw. The community is beautiful, currently with about 500 homes, but offers plenty of privacy. All the roads are paved. They have their own water system. They have their own roads department that maintains the roads and plows during the winter. The lake is lovely and stocked with fish. Swimming and boating are available. There is a pool and tennis courts. You get all of this for a $100.00 a month assessment fee. We looked at communities in Garrett County that charged $300.00 a month (and up) for half to a third of these services.

We looked at existing homes and bid on several, but we came to the realization that we would have to replace roofs and appliances or have the wood floors redone or there was not enough closet space etc. Then we started to think about building a house but were scared to death of ending up with the wrong builder at the wrong price.

The people of Alpine Lake are extremely friendly. We asked for recommendations as to builders and one name consistently came up, Chas Minor, the owner of Homes for All Seasons. He has been building homes in the area for over twenty years, and is a resident of Alpine Lake.

Chas is a custom builder who will do anything you want. We wanted a series of upgrades ranging from a jetted tub to wood floors to wood doors to a raised basement to dorm windows to Pella Windows (I am a sales manager for Pella).

We now own an extremely well built home on a large lot bordering the state of Maryland. The entire investment cost well below $200.000. We live in an extremely beautiful and safe community where the residents are professional people from Washington or Baltimore or Pittsburgh. Meeting people is a breeze and we discovered that there are a ton of things to do.

And Deep Creek Lake and Oakland?  It’s minutes away, but the property taxes are much less and West Virginia does not tax retirement income. We are very happy as residents of Alpine Lake; and we are very happy that we had Homes for All Seasons as our builder.

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