When landscaping a three-acre lot in the high desert, drawing up a design plan can pose a challenge. Where does one start? “I was inspired by the house itself,” says landscape designer Tom Holmes. “Because the house is Contemporary Southwest, I wanted the landscape to look natural and New Mexican, but also have a little bit of a contemporary flair. I used textural and odd-shaped plants to play off each other and create a contemporary feeling.”

Holmes also experimented with subtle color variations, pairing blues with greens, and selected weeping trees and wispy shrubs, such as Arizona cypress, crabapple, pussy willow and Arctic blue willow, to bend and sway in the gentle desert breezes. Pulling in native pine, cedar and juniper plants and yucca recurvafolia connected the yard to its desert surrounding. “I wanted to use things that look structural and interesting because it’s just so vast out here,” explains Holmes. “A stand of yucca to me is almost like a sculpture.”

One of Holmes’ biggest inspirations for the landscape came during a trip back to Sandia Park from Santa Fe. “There were such beautiful outcroppings of stone,” he recalls. “I was really noticing them that day – it was a pretty clear day. And it inspired me to put the boulders in and change the elevations a little bit.” Rust- and charcoal-colored boulders and rocks used to fill columns in the motor-court area were sourced from a local quarry, San Pedro Rock, which formerly served as a gold mine. Crushed rocks from the quarry act as a ground covering until natural vegetation can reseed itself in the yard. “It brightens up the land and ties everything together with the house,” Holmes adds. The monolith that presides over the front yard was also inspired by the desert landscape. “The reason I chose that particular one is that when you are looking at the house from the street or driveway, the color is more of the dark color like the trim and matches it,” Holmes explains. “When you look out of the house, it has a pinker hue to it.”

Holmes’ advice for homeowners tackling landscaping projects in a high-desert environment? Don’t compete with beautiful views; focus on small vignettes of rocks and plants. “That can move your eye through the land without realizing, ‘Gosh, there is an acre of land there that doesn’t really have any landscaping.’ Vignettes are a way to make it more interesting and keep it more natural, but not overdo it.”

When building a luxury home, little details make all the difference to builder Mark Roccaforte. Whether custom tile in the kitchen or carefully designed hardscaping, going that extra mile pays off in the end.

So what features separate this custom desert abode from a more modest family home? Roccaforte is quick to point out solar-tube skylights above the fireplace as an example. “We’ve got this nice tile, and at night, we’ve got a nice little spotlight on the tile. In daytime, we have a light shaft. It’s a small detail that gives that area a rick look.” Another standout feature includes cork flooring utilized as a wall treatment in the home theater. “It looks spectacular,” adds Roccaforte. “I had my doubts. I thought it was going over the top and we should just do one wall, not three of the four walls. Now that we’ve done it I might do it in my own home.” And then there are the doors to the home theater. “We placed glass doors on barn-door hardware,” says the builder. “That gives a nice elegant look because barn-door hardware slides on a face frame so you see the door from inside the room. It’s contemporary but not over the top.”

The skill of the builder’s crew also comes into play: Affording team members a certain amount of creativity has its benefits. “My tile setter is an amazing guy and he does great work,” Roccaforte explains. “And when I ask for his input, I get a better product at the end, rather than just dictating, ‘This is how it should be.’” We solved some issues on the fireplace just because he’s so experienced.”

What makes HGTV Dream Home 2010 high-end? Builder Mark Roccaforte lists the most striking features:

• Three high-efficiency hot water heaters and boilers by Rinnai

• A low-maintenance heating system. “Radiant heat is comfortable heat because you don’t have air blowing around,” Roccaforte explains. “It heats the slab and heats the air slowly. You don’t get dust blowing around, you don’t get dry noses or the types of things you get from a forced-air system. It’s also quiet.”

• Sub-Zero appliances by Wolf

• A home-automation system controlled via a wireless touchpad no larger than an iPod. “All your switches are dimmable and programmable. Thermostats are programmable via the home-automation system too,” he adds.

 • A home stereo system. Each room features its own speaker  and volume control , and the home is equipped with hookups for up to six MP3 players.

• Custom features including metal exterior accents;  kitchen, fireplace and casita tiles crafted by a local artisan; a steam shower in the master bathroom; and an oversized master closet.

• Thoughtful  home design. “On our south side we have heavy, deep-inset windows so we don’t have direct sun hitting that glass,” explains Roccaforte. “It’s high-end because it’s well planned.  It’s designed with function in mind as well as beauty. “

• Landscaping. “We have lots of different plants that are all hardy and good in our Southwest environment,” says Roccaforte. “A lot of evergreen, low-maintenance plants that thrive on an automatic drip-irrigation system.”

Q: “What’s the difference or advantage of one slab pour versus three? Was it only to stay within a time frame?” – Lessie

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As HGTV Dream Home 2010 nears completion, builder Mark Roccaforte zeroes in on finishing details – from stucco application to wood floor and decorative tile installation.

The Interior
After the completion of spray-in insulation, tongue-and-groove pine wood ceilings were installed. The look, popular in the Southwest, has its roots in old adobe dirt and wood roofing systems. After drywalling, painting and door installation, work began on the wood flooring, a challenging process for Roccaforte and his crew. “That was a unique system,” explains the builder. “We have a concrete slab so we cannot nail our wood down, and I don’t like to glue it down.” The solution? Roccaforte adhered flooring to Elastilon, a self-adhesive underlayment. “It’s quite impressive,” he adds. “It’s very much like a carpet pad — it adds cushioning. This particular one stretches so it keeps the wood together and, at any given time, if someone wanted to change the floor, they could pull the wood off (it’s not attached to the concrete).”

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The Exterior
How does an exterior treatment like stucco stand up to temperature fluctuations as drastic as those found in the Southwest? “Stucco used to consist of only concrete, and you’d get cracks all over the place because it just couldn’t perform in these extreme conditions,” explains Roccaforte. The builder solves the problem with elastomeric-based stucco. “It’s like a rubber band,” he adds. “It expands and contracts.” Two brown coats are followed by a hand-troweled color coat that eliminates the need to paint exterior surfaces. “This is a great product, which as a builder is the only thing I use,” he adds.

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Roccaforte is point blank when it comes to the finishing stage of homebuilding. “Stay on your subs,” he asserts. “So often, when you get enough people in a house, especially on an escalated schedule, people are working on top of each other. But that’s no excuse not to clean up. If someone sees someone else drop something on the floor, they are going to start doing the same thing. As a contractor, that is incredibly important, not only for safety and preserving your materials and wood floors and that sort of thing, but for pride in your job site. If you hold people accountable for cleanliness, they will be accountable and respect you more and think of you as a higher quality builder because of it.”

The first phase in the build process, pouring of the foundation and framing of the walls, went as planned and on schedule, according to builder Mark Roccaforte. The secret to success? Prep work – and plenty of it. Soil compaction and engineering tests, a septic system perk test and acquisition of proper permits were all imperative before work could begin. Experience also came into play, says Roccaforte. “Knowing your material, knowing what you are building, having experienced crews, knowing how much your crew can handle and keeping an eye on the weather so you can foresee if there is going to be a problem are all important,” he says.

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Acclaimed builder Mark Roccaforte joined the Dream Team in March 2009 to construct HGTV’s first Southwest-style Dream Home. What does one do on the first day of work? “We started with four squares on a paper and started moving them around,” explains Roccaforte of a house-plan brainstorming session that included house planner Jack Thomasson, designer Amy Coburn and interior designer Linda Woodrum. Roccaforte, who has dedicated the past eight years of his career to construction of Pueblo-style homes in the Santa Fe area, initially suggested an existing plan with traditional features such as vigas (log rafters) and adobe-style plaster walls. But the project demanded a more modern approach, which suits the builder just fine. “It was a very collaborative process,” he explains.

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Three years ago house planner Jack Thomasson spent time in New Mexico scouting for HGTV Dream Home sites. Although he loved the area and the idea of a truly Southwestern location, he came up empty-handed. Then, last year, he discovered San Pedro Overlook. “I was driving the Turquoise Trail between Santa Fe and Albuquerque and there it was, halfway between these two great towns on one of the most scenic drives in the country,” he says. “I felt like it was the right place at the right time. All of the puzzle pieces fell into place.”

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