SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lauren McCaleb of Chicago has been chosen as the 2011 Taylor Morrison Dream Home Giveaway winner, beating out more than 1.1 million entries to claim her $200,000 grand prize.
McCaleb, a mother of two and grandmother of four, said she and her husband, Richard, initially couldn’t believe her good fortune, which was delivered via voice mail on her home phone. Two weeks later, the shock of winning is still settling in.
“I’ve listened to the message at least 10 times,” McCaleb said. “It’s hard to believe that I’ve actually won. I had to make my husband read it for himself on the computer the other day. He wasn’t buying the whole thing.”
After an exhaustive search, the couple has chosen the Phoenix metropolitan area to have their home built, weighing communities in Austin, Texas and Sarasota, Florida before making their decision.
“Taylor Morrison has so many great places to choose from that it was actually hard to pick,” McCaleb said. “We narrowed it down to Phoenix and Austin and spoke with salespeople from both areas before finally deciding. But it was a hard choice.”
Since it first started in 2008, the Taylor Morrison Dream Home Giveaway contest has been a runaway success, with almost $1 million worth of homes given away in the process. Sacramento single mother Jennifer Draa won in 2008. Draa was followed by Arizona wife and mother Kristin Pierce in 2009 and an Arizona father, Michael Bernardo, in 2010. All of those winners chose to have homes built in their hometowns, while McCaleb is thinking ahead to retirement for her and her husband.
“Right now the plan is to build the house and then retire in the winter,” she said. “Since most of my family has never been to Arizona, we’re expecting a lot of visitors.”
As with previous years, the winner will have the opportunity to design their dream home, selecting the floor plan and options that best suit their lifestyle and making their new home one they can truly call their own.
“For our team at Taylor Morrison, the fun really begins when our winner is selected,” said Sheryl Palmer, CEO and President of Taylor Morrison. “Sometimes it’s hard to figure out who’s more excited; we love delivering one of our homes to such deserving winners.”
This is the fourth year for the Taylor Morrison Dream Home Giveaway, inspired by the Innoventions Dream Home located at the Disneyland® Resort in Anaheim, Calif., which Taylor Morrison built in a partnership with Disneyland, Microsoft and HP.
For more information on the 2011 Dream Home Giveaway or Taylor Morrison homes and communities, please visit www.taylormorrison.com.
About Taylor Morrison
Taylor Morrison was named the No. 1 private homebuilder in the United States in 2010 and 2011 by Builder magazine and builds a wide range of product for discerning home buyers across the country. With more than 130 communities in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida and Texas, Taylor Morrison offers first-time, mid-market and mid-to-upscale housing in both master-planned communities and urban infill neighborhoods. The company also operates one of Canada’s largest homebuilding companies, Monarch, in Ontario, Canada, where it builds single-family homes and high-rise condominiums in Toronto and Ottawa. For more information, visit www.taylormorrison.com.