DEL.ICIO.USPublished on: 07/27/06
Bill and Mona Clary, Douglas County
 Kimberly Smith / AJC | ||
| Jeff and Dorothy Arnold at home with their three children Noah, 8, Ben, 6 and daughter Saylor, 19 months in the Vickery development in Cumming. They moved in in March 2006. | ||
 Kimberly Smith / AJC | ||
| Doug Bremner and his wife, Viola Vaccarino, at their Druid Hills home in DeKalb County. The kitchen was a big part of the extensive renovation work the couple did on the home. | ||
 Kimberly Smith / AJC | ||
| Bill and Mona Clary and their dog Winston at their Douglasville home, which sits on nearly six acres of property. | ||
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Professional entertainer Bill Clary swears that when he met his wife Mona, an event planner, she told him she wanted "a log cabin and a bunch of animals and enough privacy so she could run out on the deck naked if she wanted to."
After living in a Stone Mountain subdivision they decided in 1990 to make her dream come true. The result is a 4,000-square-foot log home on more than five acres in Douglas County.
The couple needed the space. With two children of their own, they adopted two more when Mona's sister died in a car accident.
There were also those animals Mona had wanted — a horse, chickens, peacocks and turkeys, to name a few.
Besides the three bathrooms indoors, there's an outhouse (with modern plumbing) and an attached waterwheel. And there are other buildings — a playhouse, a horse barn, a storage barn and a greenhouse.
The Clarys have hosted eight weddings and various parties and fund-raisers. Their house has been featured on HGTV and in Pondscape Magazine.
"'It's like going to a mountain cabin getaway every day," said Bill.
But now in their mid-fifties, they're ready to move on.
Their getaway is on the market for $1 million.
Doug Bremner and Viola Vaccarino, Druid Hills, DeKalb County
Leaving a 100-year-old house in Connecticut in 2000, Doug Bremner and his wife, Viola Vaccarino, wanted to find a house with character.
He's a researcher who also practices psychiatry and nuclear medicine at Emory University and the Veteran's Administration Hospital. She's a epidemiology researcher at Emory.
They almost bought a house in Inman Park, but a previous owner had done some renovation they didn't like.
When they found their vintage 1920 brick house, it needed major work. They paid $800,000 and added hundreds of thousands more in renovations by builder Judy Mozen. It's now appraised at $1.2 million.
"We had builders here for almost a year," said Vaccarino.
They redid the kitchen with an island and light-colored granite that looks like marble, turned one small bedroom into a master bath and another into a library, put French doors in the dining room, replaced heating and air conditioning and repaired termite damage on the second floor.
They still have four bedrooms—theirs, one for 14-year-old daughter Sabina, one for 8-year-old son Dylan, and a guest room.
They also have modern conveniences in a historic neighborhood laid out by the legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, with homes designed by some of the top architects of the era.
"There's something you get from an old house that you don't get from new construction," said Vaccarino.
Jeff and Dorothy Arnold, Vickery, Forsyth County
When Jeff and Dorothy Arnold visited friends at Vickery with their sons, Noah, 8, Ben, 6, and daughter Saylor, 20 months, they were impressed by the neighborliness of the planned Forsyth County community.
Early this year, the salesman and his homemaker wife paid $920,000 for their own Vickery home, adding another $700 a year to their payments for neighborhood fees.
They like the upstairs, where three bedrooms open into a play area that adjoins the master bedroom, allowing them to keep an eye and ear on the children.
But mostly they like the community, Jeff Arnold said. Vickery is a planned village with single-family homes, townhomes, shops, offices and schools within walking distance.
The Arnolds moved from a neighborhood near Lake Lanier where there were few children.
At Vickery, the lots are fairly small and neighborhood children play in a park. It means neighbors see each other and get acquainted, he said.
"You pay to live certain places," Arnold said. "They're building this idea, this dream, and it's actually working."
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