Editorial
Front Page - Friday, February 25, 2011
Fine Homes provides comforting residences for many
Erica Tuggle
Bill Fine’s office gives clients a good idea of what they can expect when they decide to build a custom home with him or even what kind of quality goes into his spec homes. The Fine Homes, Inc. office on Ware Branch Cove Drive in Harrison is actually a home that Fine works out of and is for sale. If you step into his office, with its many pictures of his beloved grandchildren and family on the walls, you can easily imagine setting up your own cozy office in this nook.
Continuing throughout the house, the other rooms give the visitor the same good feeling about a house built specially in mind for them. Behind this house-turned-office and display of Fine’s work is a lake view that almost reaches Harrison Bay State Park. This picturesque ideal of how your own house may look after working with Fine is complete with the big “guard” dog in the front yard, sunning himself on the driveway and greeting all who visit.
The home that Fine works out of with all these features is just one option that his clients can have with a custom built home. Being a builder for 20 years, Fine can make sure that his clients have whichever type of home feel they are looking for, whether on the lake or tucked back into the trees. Although Fine says that nobody can build “the perfect house, no matter what,” the homes he builds seem to come very close to the ideal.
With his years of experience in building, Fine is well known in the area and regularly sought out for help on home building. Yet, many might not realize that Fine is a humble and brilliant self taught artist of home building.
Fine grew up in East Ridge and attended East Ridge High School. His family owned a
garage and body shop there for many years, and when his mother and father retired, Fine decided he was going to sell his part of the business to his brother. Two years after selling out this portion of the business, he decided to go into the home building business.
“I just had an interest in it and had never done it before,” he says simply.
Fine had a house built and sold it and then the person that framed the house for him came and asked who was going to build his next house. Fine said he didn’t know at the time, but when the framer suggested that Fine build the house himself, that started the wheels in motion.
“From that day on, I built my first house as my personal house and we lived in it for awhile and sold it and then I started just building spec houses,” he says.
By a trial and error process of going through each job and finding what worked and didn’t work along the way, Fine has now come to be one of the most recognized names in building in the area. He has built in Ooltewah, Apison, Harrison and Cleveland, Tenn. His houses have ranged between $79,000 and $900,000.
Right now, Fine is about to start two custom home building jobs. The first is in Hampton Cove and the other will be in the Heights at Island Point. Fine is also now building four spec homes in a little subdivision along 58 Highway called Maple Leaf subdivision. The prices of these homes will range from $165,000 to $180,000.
The typical build on Fine’s spec houses and his smaller custom houses usually is 90 days or less, weather permitting, he says. For the custom houses he is about to start work on, they are probably going to take six to seven months, he says.
In the custom houses that Fine builds, there is a prevalence of mostly brick and stone mixture on the outside of the house. On the inside, he puts in a lot of hardwood floors, oak staircases, Corian counter tops and custom built cabinetry.
The bottom line in creating these homes is that the buyer’s needs are what determines how the project is approached and the flow of the build. With the market slow down, Fine started building homes that were priced better than the rest and more of what people are looking for. Fine listens to his customers’ needs and tailors their suggestions into the build.
The turn of the economy also changed Fine’s business in that he began to do more custom building work. Before the downturn, the demand for spec homes was so high so that Fine put a halt on his custom building. Now, with the spec market slowing down, he has been doing more custom home building and has been bidding on more jobs to get custom homes.
“With a spec home, you build it and hope someone comes along and likes it and buys it like it is,” Fine says. “A custom home is when you start from the ground up and the customer brings the blueprint to you and picks everything out.”
For the spec homes that Fine is currently working on, his bookkeeper Natalie or he will pick out the colors and things on houses, he says. An eye for color, building skills and experience in many different types of builds makes Fine a man of many talents.
Fine says the best thing he likes to do is take the day off and drive to Nashville, he gets to see his two young grandsons, Will and Thomas, the latter of whom was born only two weeks ago. Grandpa Fine and Will are the best of buddies, as the pictures in Fine’s office are quick to show and Fine is happy to brag on.
Fine has also been married for 30 years to his wife Julie and has two daughters.
When looking for a home as comfy as Fine has made
his office and the homes he builds, stick with a well-known name in town and get yourself a Fine home.
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