Jocelyn & Scott Perez: Moving up in Mallory Creek
Story By Rebecca Pierre
Photography By Wendy Hunt
Realtors will tell you that the three most important aspects of building a home are location, location, location. For Jocelyn Perez, a native of Bloomsburg, Pa., this has proven true. She found the perfect location to begin her new life in the South when she moved to Mallory Creek Plantation, and the community also proved to be the perfect location when she and her husband started a family and needed a bigger home.
Jocelyn came to Brunswick County after the rest of her family moved south from Pennsylvania. When Jocelyn’s sister decided to attend dental school in Chapel Hill, her parents began vacationing on the North Carolina coast. They discovered Southport with its charming streets and homes, decided to buy a condo in the area and made plans to retire there. And they talked Jocelyn into moving south.
With this advice in mind, Jocelyn began a home site search that led her up and down Highway 133. She finally settled on Mallory Creek Plantation and decided to build her house in the Tyler’s Cove community of Mallory Creek.
“It’s 20 minutes to Southport and 10 minutes to Wilmington so that put me between the two,” says Jocelyn.
A beautician who has owned her own shop, Jocelyn brought her profession with her but had to wait for her license to be transferred from Pennsylvania to North Carolina. In the meantime she worked as a bartender at Eddie Romanelli’s in Leland, where she met Scott Perez.
Scott and Jocelyn married, and the house in Tyler’s Cove at Mallory Creek Plantation continued to be a perfect location for them. Scott also liked being situated between Southport and Wilmington. Scott was born in Southport where he has extended family, including his 92-year-old grandmother, who was also born in Southport. And he works for the New Hanover County Sheriff ’s Department, so living in Mallory Creek Plantation makes his commute to work an easy one.
The house in Tyler’s Cove was a haven for Jocelyn and Scott and eventually baby Steven, now 3. But when baby Jeremy, now 1 1/2, came along, the house began to feel a bit small.
One day, when Jocelyn was rollerblading while pushing her two little boys in their double stroller, she came upon the new Cove Landing community in Mallory Creek Plantation. She really liked the area and inquired with Stevens Fine Homes’ on-site agents about when the property there would be available for purchase. Jocelyn met Wendy Melville, new home specialist at Stevens Fine Homes, who also told her about Stevens’ South Brook community and the incredible price point on the homes there.
“Jocelyn said they were two years out on buying a new home, but she was impressed with Stevens’ $72-a-square-foot building cost in South Brook and she kept coming in the office,” says Melville. “We got her talking to a lender and within three to four months of her first visit we had started building her home.”
With Melville’s help, Jocelyn and Scott purchased a home site in South Brook and selected a much larger home plan for their family. Stevens’ low building costs and a low-interest-rate loan helped them nearly triple their square footage.
“Wendy worked as both the buyer’s and seller’s agent in this case,” says Jocelyn. “She represented both sides as fairly as she could. She worked her magic and did a lot for us. We actually became great friends.”
Jocelyn also really liked their builder.
“This is the fourth house I have built and it’s the first time I actually met the builder,” says Jocelyn. “Craig Stevens is amazing. They were awesome to work with — they were great.”
Stevens Fine Homes offers a variety of floor plans in each size range. Jocelyn and Scott decided on a 3,000-square-foot plan.
“It is all the house we will ever need,” Jocelyn says. “Eventually the kids will be able to come home to the same house they grew up in.”
When Jocelyn and Scott visited the Stevens Design Center to customize some of the options of their home plan, they decided to make some changes. They removed a couple of pillars at the entrance, added a half wall on the second floor, had a TV niche built above the fireplace and moved a window in the family room a couple of feet in order to accommodate a corner cupboard.
During the building process, Stevens superintendent Matt Johnson frequently asked Jocelyn to come in to see if the changes had been done correctly. Jocelyn was amazed at this professionalism, personal service and the fact that there were never any problems with the work. She was so happy with how the work was progressing that she declared every Thursday “doughnut day” and brought enough doughnuts to feed the whole crew. On Saturdays she went to the deli and brought back sandwiches for their lunch.
The resulting house is a wonder of open space, with many windows that bathe the rooms in light. Inside the front entrance, where the plans call for a formal dining room, Jocelyn has made a “Man Land.” Here is the bar, handmade by her grandfather in 1959 to use in the basement of his house. Jocelyn and her mother refinished the bar to fit the decor of the room. On the bar sits the same guest book her grandfather used to have all his friends sign when they came to visit. The pages are yellowed but the signatures remain, and Jocelyn is carrying on the tradition by having her guests sign it as well.
The six-inch-wide walnut flooring that leads throughout the house adds a touch of warmth, and the carpeted stairs, bedrooms and family areas add comfort. Jocelyn’s Northeast Country decor and wood furniture made in Lancaster, Pa., pull it all together beautifully. The guest room and guest bath tucked behind the two-car garage offer a cozy retreat and afford privacy for the guests as well as the family. The spacious family room with its fireplace is separated from the kitchen by a bar, making it open to the kitchen and the dining area. Scott built a lovely brick deck where there is an outdoor kitchen.
“I love to sit on that deck in the sun and watch the boys at play,” says Jocelyn.
At the top of the stairs, a half wall separates the boys’ large playroom from the hall that leads to the other second-floor rooms. The boys have their own bedrooms and share a bath.
The master suite is secluded, yet close enough to the children’s rooms for Jocelyn and Scott to hear the boys. The sumptuous master bedroom is spacious, designed for comfort, and topped by a graceful tray ceiling. The master bath contains a private commode, and a half wall separates the vanity area from the bathing area. There are two walk-in closets.
Unfortunately, only a few months after the Perez family began enjoying their beautiful new home, Scott was diagnosed with stage 3 throat cancer. After a tough battle, he is now cancer free. Stevens Fine Homes and members of the Mallory Creek communities hosted a cancer-free party for Scott at the South Brook model home in February 2011. That’s just one example of the close-knit feeling in this community.
Jocelyn is so pleased with her new home in South Brook that she brags to family and friends about the builder and the process. That word-of-mouth advertising has resulted in four more people building homes in South Brook.
“She brought me four more home buyers for South Brook,” says Melville. “South Brook holds great appeal to Brunswick-area residents like Jocelyn who are outgrowing their homes and moving up.”
