Every year HGTV gives away a couple of houses in sweepstakes. I usually glance, but don’t always enter. I am very unlikely to move to Arizona, for example. This year I have entered every day, religiously.
::wipes drool:: It’s on Anastasia Island.
I love this house. I love where it is, I love that balcony, I love that blue kitchen, I love everything about it. Love, love, love. My house. Mine.
Since I want it so much, I am sharing it with you. To enter: HGTV.
that’s a very nice house. I see why it has piqued your interest ♡
Wow, just wow! I hope you get lucky in the contest!
+1 Lovely! Good luck!
I want the daybed with the bookshelves and the dog wash station. Maybe in my next house…
I had hot and cold water added to the outside of my garage. I bought a raised dog bath tub and stairs for the dogs to climb into the tub. Best home improvement ever. Highly recommend it. It didn’t end up costing all that much.
Good luck! Maybe HGTV should give you the house. 😀
Ooooooooh, pretty! Good luck, fingers crossed for a win!
Beautiful. Alas, I would have to sell the house to pay the income taxes. lol.
I was thinking the same thing! Gorgeous home and location but I wouldn’t be able to afford winning lol
They also include a cash payment and a car. I’d use them to pay for the taxes this house and the win, BUT the property taxes and homeowners insurance might be problematic.
The way HGTV structures the contests, you have to pay the taxes on the house before they give it to you. As a result, hardly anyone is ever able to keep the house.
Good luck!
Pretty! Best wishes!
The window seat with bookshelves, the Persimmon Pantry, the pet washing station, the spa bathroom, the list of wonders just goes on and on! I too, love this place! The location, the landscaping, the colors! Magnificent! I won’t be entering the sweepstakes since I could never afford the upkeep and taxes. Thank -you for sharing the wonderful fantasy!
Love the house. Not the location. I don’t want to live anywhere the ocean can decide to move in.
Agree completely, one of the reasons we moved from The Netherlands to Sweden. Keep being flabergasted about people building on places they could know (!) are going to be in trouble, like straight against the beach..
Also can you imagine the bugs!! I get soooo many mosquito bites living in Boston… i would get Eaten ALIVE there! HAHA
It is a gorgeous house though!!
I am lucky enough to live on Anastasia Island!
Would love to have you guys as neighbors.
Do you have manatees?
So pretty! Thanks for sharing, but maybe you shouldn’t have so you’d up your chances of winning! 😄
Quite a few years ago, they did a house in Asheville, NC. I LOVED that house! I entered everyday, every way that I could. 😊
Lately, they’ve been putting them in developments where you’d have neighbors (after the other houses were built). I haven’t looked too far into this one yet, but hopefully the winner doesn’t have others being built right on top of them!
The house on Lake Lure? I entered everyday for that one, loved everything about it. I knew it would be a temporary stay and I’d have sell. The guy that won it did try to keep it and I believe it ended up in foreclosure.
it’s gorgeous…and in a country far far away where I have no rights to abide 😭 SO I hereby bequeath my entry back to you. who knows? I might have won it, but now it will be yours instead. Yours. Continue drooling 😁
I enter too, but the downside is you have to pay income tax on the $2.2M valuation, roughly $1M, so most people end up selling when they win. I usually enter with the plan to cash out, but might try hard to make one work if everything is ideal.
You actually have to pay the taxes BEFORE you can take possession of the house.
If you are color-chip-picking cursed, as I am, the color blue of the kitchen cabinets strikes me as the blue I would be looking for, but would never quite find because I would look at the chip and say “oh, that’s not it” even if it was.
Also, as an engineering geologist who has worked for my state’s natural hazards division – a Florida barrier island at sea level? No. Even though I have been to – and loved – St Augustine.
I can’t even *explain* the level of color-chip-picking curse I am under. I’m talking Ramses Tomb curse and up!
I wanted a nice aged oak coloured laminate floor. I looked at it in the store. It looked too dark. It brought along an actual piece of the floor I had at the time. I put said piece on the sample in the store. The one I was looking at was definitely was too dark. I picked the lighter shade that looked just right.
The floor I have now is only slighter darker than beech and sticks out like a sore thumb from the remaining oak coloured floor I still have.
Le sigh.
I picked a lovely color called “sea salt green” for my laundry room. I painted the room, dropped and broke the light fixture putting it back up, bought a new light fixture that had LEDs instead of incandescent and it turned that lovely light sea green gray to baby blue. See, even when I pick the right color, it’s the wrong color.
Good luck to you. Hope you had Kid 1 and 2 enter also
Love it, however, I can never enter any of these no matter how much I want to. Since my dad retired from Sherwin Williams, as a family member, I am excluded from winning ☹️
It is lovely— good luck!
That’s a great writer’s house.
You should buy it. For your Wilmington years.
I wish! 2 mil is a bit rich for me, heh. It is such a charming house, though.
Too much house for me at this point. And since I have the gardening “thumb of death”, the landscaping would fail in a month. But I could fence the backyard and get a greyhound or two. And add a “catio” for a couple cats.
OKAY…. BDH!
LET’S ALL PUT IT INTO THE UNIVERSE!
“LET ILONA AND ANDREW GORDON WIN THE HGTV HOME GIVEAWAY THIS YEAR!”
Say it 3 times.
Because we want To Thank Them For Sharing Their Genius With Us!
I’m sorry to do this to you, I agree it’s beautiful, but did you look at the side pictures, where it shows the back deck kind of hanging off the edge of the river? All i can picture is one of those floods like we had in Montana a few years ago, where it sent a lot of houses into the river….. Nope.
The house fits right in with dreaming of dragons.
I’m pretty sure if you win it you don’t have to live in it. I enter all their house giveaways
I do as well, for the cash payout option. I don’t want or need a house that big, but I would like to have the money, give the IRS their chunk, and build my own small dream house with what’s left. I can dream, right? 🙂
When I win, you can visit! We can bake pithiviers! LOL.
Except for the shower stall, not to my taste – but if you like it, go for it and best of luck!
LOL – you are not the only one! This BDH member has entered everyday since it’s announcement.
The outdoor back patio – it must be mine!!!! Love it.
Good luck 🍀 I hope you win
It is lovely! Best of luck to you!
I am the same way. There was one last year in Wilmington NC and another in Colorado that I loved. The one in Colorado had an amazing outdoor fire pit gathering area. I dont even like outside but I entered that one. I even made my husband enter the NC one. We were getting ready to move to NJ from NC at that time and I would have done a full pivot for that house.
A bathroom built for two at the same time.
I own a blue house, with a blue ceiling and a blue / gray kitchen on Anastasia island. It is right behind the alligator farm and 1 mile from downtown, the amphitheater, 2 miles to the state park (easy on a bike). It has a front space for renters! Did I mention we would gladly sell? Sad part it is so blue the ocean comes to visit a lot, like 6 times in the past 8 years. Your blue house looks much more safe.
Shouldn’t you be warning us all off, lol? Seriously, I hope you win, you guys deserve it for all the joy you give the horde!
if you can’t use a horde to acquire a house, what good are they?!
lol!!
We have also been entering religiously. Love the house
Is the car part of the deal?
WOW, what a house. Thanks for sharing, but won’t be entering. It is on an island and that means too close to water for me. Beautiful house though, love the kitchen.
I enter everyday! I love this house, too.
My complaint about the house is the BBQ area is at the opposite end from the kitchen and right out side the master bedroom. Being in Florida, you’ll have to deal with LOTS of bugs and gaters. I was born in Florida, no thanks.
I watched the special. I know you’re in it for dog bathing station in the garage. 😁
Good luck!
Fingers are crossed for you! It is lovely.
I entered a competition here in the UK called Omaze for a house near Bath, it was really beautiful and I was convinced it should be mine and I would even keep it rather than sell it! Sadly it was not to be.
One thing I see in people’s comments is that they would be unable to pay the tax on winning a multi million house, I thought that it’s the same as other winnings and would be tax free? This is very disappointing if not.
In the US you are taxed on winnings. Yes, it is very sad.
I think we’re ok for tax free winnings in the UK. Or at least google says so, except if we sell the house after a while and it’s increased in value there’s a strange and likely unreliable newspaper article insinuating that we’ll pay capital gains, but it’s the Mail so probably not true.
I’m sorry about US taxes, that sucks.
In HGTV house contests, you actually have to pay the taxes before they sign over the house to you. It’s pretty much a bait and switch kinda deal. “Oh, you won! Now you just need to pay $800,000, and we’ll sign the deed over to you! Can’t afford that? You can go for the cash option, which is about $500,000 after taxes.”
Omg the Omaze houses are gorgeous. I always enter the London ones.
Even lottery wins are taxed.
Oh myyyy!
I was blissfully unaware of location or about the Dream House this year. Until now. And now I have to spend the next hour going through all the pictures and descriptions and drooling.
I totally get your love for this house. I have a blue kitchen and love it.
Perhaps the trend of having everything gray and white is over and we can have color again? Love the butler’s pantry.
Oh my gosh, yes! I have looked at so many gray houses in the last couple years, and all I can think is “how depressing.”
Most especially in rainy coastal regions. Where’s the joyful colors?
I hope you win!!! So pretty. Almost has a beach coastal feel to it. Love the interiors!
Just lovely. I see why it piqued your interest. Wishing you the best of luck!
Your posts always make me smile! 🙂
good luck. have fun getting insurance on it. had a small house in daytona, inland, and could not find a company willing to insure. pretty soon, living in florida will mean having enough money to rebuild your house again . . . and again . . . and again . . .
Yes, I’ve read the articles on how hard it is to get insured. That’s is one of the reasons why we would never buy in Florida. I am sorry the insurance was so hard to find.
I have two houses in Florida…insurance is there, just need to use a broker to find the best deal…there are too many scam companies… sad.
Love the shower! The probability of storm surges, not so much. I do hope you get it and all the seas stay calm for you.
Noooioo, I love that house, and I’ve been entering religiously, now the odds are going to be much lower with the BDH entering! 🤪
One word:
Hurricanes
I’m wishing it for you! I hope you win. It looks amazing!! A dream house come true!
I will put entries in and give it to Ilona and Gordon all they have to do is ship me the pet washing station.
Beautiful, beautiful house, but man, pet washing station, give me, give me and I will give you the house.
good luck 🤞
Has that house been finished and would it look like the pics? Everything from the int/ext walls, to the driveway, to the furniture looks digitally generated. I see lines that are perfectly straight, unblemished exteriors, and items that don’t quite match the lighting. Wonder how it looks in real life. Still a gorgeous design tho.
It is finished. The only problem is that the builder installed a type of rock that prevents erosion, but he did not get approval before installing it. He is now trying to get approval after the fact.
This picture shows the completed house in situ.
I finally put my finger on that kitchen. It’s an Elvis Blue Kitchen. Elvis’ Blue Suede. *nods* It had been niggling in the back of my mind all day and finally decided to let me in on the secret. Lol
it is a lovley house and a wonderful view
It’s beautiful! Keep dreaming, perhaps it will inspire something new for your home?
My husband and I have been entering these HGTV home giveaways for years. As you say when the location isn’t ideal we enter sporadically, but not this year! I want it and we would use it!! We have been entering every day too!! Good luck, maybe this will be my lucky year 😂
looks pretty in your post… the BDH may have broken the link, as its not working😳
but hopefully that will increase the chances of it becoming House Andrews
Oooh – so fab 😍 Best of luck 🤞
WOW!! Wrong coast for me but I love everything else about it! I can see why you’re entering every time you can… good luck.
It is amazing! Good luck!
I love where it is as well. My husband and I took our daughter (whose name is Anastasia 😁) to Anastasia Island a couple of years ago for a super quick beach vacation after visiting friends in another part of the state. We had a great time.
You don’t have to keep the house if you win the sweepstakes. they usually offer a house and a vehicle, and they’ll tell you how much cash they’ll give you if you would rather have that. It’s usually quite a large sum of money, and it doesn’t really ever end well for people who take the house.
Wow !!! Just wow !!! Class and cosy at the same time !! Really beautiful !!!
I also love this house and am so glad the kitchen is not some hideous shade of green like the last few home. Now if we can get them away from gold-tone fixtures it would be perfect
Thank you, Ilona! I just entered. Oh, to live in the home they are offering! At least I can day dream about it (grin!). If I don’t win, I hope you do. I’m so sick & tired of South Dakota winters, & every subsequent winter is harder on this body twisted by scoliosis & soft tissue disease. I’d willingly brave Arizona’s scorpions & what ever other “vicious” bugs Arizona has. Snakes don’t bother me; we have rattle snakes in SoDak.
You have great taste!
I know you are in process re: switching off Mailchimp. Thought you should know that his post came into my spam folder ( I told it, it was not spam, no problem), but it contained a warning. “This message seems dangerous
It contains links to websites hosting malware. Avoid clicking links in the message.”
I thought you’d like to know~
The house is gorgeous! I hope you win it, or the lottery so you can clone it!
I so love reading your work and being a proud BDH member!!
I also received this message in my spam folder, including the big malware warning!
It’s probably not so much the switch as the 3rd party link to HGTV 🙂 . Gmail spam filter does not like those, or the words “click here” and now apparently “to enter”.
I enter it every year – but some houses are so much more / yours/
This years house is one that I would want to keep – also the one that was in Matthew’s ,Va right outside the historic triangle was a super awesome house / I love it when they have great outside spaces – and not too weird interiors
Hope one of us wins the house 🏡
Good luck! And if any of the BDH wins, you know what to do (/j) 😆
<3 <3
Me Too! It calls to me! I am saving pics as inspiration for updating my house. Blue!
Hurricane risk + Flooding risk + A beautiful house = Heartbreak
If you pick the house, you have to pay the taxes before they even sign the deed over to you.
I love this house as well. I’ve been entering every day. Good luck to you.
I am a faithful HGTV watcher so I see the commercial for that house often. That blue kitchen is my dream kitchen. Love it.
Beautiful! Good Luck, hope you win.
Well, you absolutely deserve it – as well as a live-in housekeeper and a weekly gardener/groundskeeper. I am all in for it for you and your lovely husband.
FYI – Gmail flagged as phishing. I’m trying to report it as not phishing.
Those are gorgeous! No wonder you entered religiously.
sooo beautiful — thank you for sharing this enormous yet serene home 🙂
Sadly, Gmail has decided that the new newsletter is spam and dangerous. It’s tossing the email into my spam folder, and even when I release it, Gmail insists that the email “contains links to websites hosting malware. Avoid clicking links in the message.” Glad I can still read via the FB link.
Gmail has a very unsophisticated spam filter that hates fun. It’s probably not the newsletter as a whole, it just didn’t like the outside link with the words “To enter” 🙂 . “Click here” is also a phrase we have to stay away from.
It is a lovely house, but I am not sure is would suite Arizona. I presume it could be adapted.
Wishing you all the best of luck in the draw. Looks lovely from the pics. I love that color pallet also.
It is also interesting reading from Finland the comments regarding living in Florida. Definately feel sad for those who cannot get insurance for their homes.
The state is on my list of places to visit, though have to confess that New Orleans is higher…
Nola all the way. Especially for a book lover. So many novels, especially supernatural related novels, are set there.
It’s lovely, and in your dream location. Best of luck to you!
Since 🇨🇦 is ineligible, I hope you win!
I love looking at the pictures of the house, especially the blue kitchen. But can someone tell me what the point of a pot filler is? Yeah, I know you would not have to carry a big, ol’ heavy pot of water TO the stove. But then you still have to carry the pot of probably very hot water back to the sink. If you have a pot filler, is there a pot drain available? Shouldn’t there be? I like to make jams and jellies and have sometimes considered siphoning the hot water from pot to sink. A household use for a bilge pump.heh.
Very Beautiful house! Good Luck!
Can I enter from the UK?????
I like the persimmon color. I have a bathroom that’s in need of a new coat of paint and that’s a nice color.
I hate that HGTV is glamorizing an at-grade house at near-water level in a hurricane zone on an island. I’m in the building industry. when we talk about designing for resiliency, this house is the exact type of thing that we want to see less of. it makes me both angry and sad because HGTV should have people who know better and should at the very least not be using their powers for what, to me, looks a lot like evil. I don’t blame every day folk. I am educated in collapses and disasters and resiliency and risk. these are huge topics in the building industry. I’d just assume that something like HGTV would also be in the building industry enough to at least go “maybe this is in poor taste?”
the sweepstakes is nice in that for a little bit of time you get all the fantasy of it could be yours without any of the ugly risk of reality.
I’m really sorry for the cynicism on a dreamy post.
That house is gorgeous! Usually I feel meh to yuck about the HGTV Dream House but I love this one.
Good luck! Hope you win!
If they just pulled the driveway up to the back deck and added that glorious large shower, I would take it.
I enter every day, every year!!!
I do enjoy watching the dream house giveaways and the urban oasis too. I like all the blue. I drool over the kitchen and the showers. I’ve only entered a few times and that was for a house they did in Lake Tahoe. It’s only a few hours away from my hometown. I don’t enter the ones that are really far away. I’d never use the house.
haha I feel your envy & possessiveness. I used to enter religiously the same as you untilI figured out I wouldn’t be able to afford the prop taxes!
But I want it. You can’t have it. So there
I do love that kitchen.
Not to be a negative Nancy but my husband said those giveaways are Bs cause you will have to pay tax on the value of the prize
It is a VERY nice house. Invite me when it’s yours please.
Ooh very pretty! Good luck!
My hubby picks the colors, I am color challenged! After the incident in my kitchen (I painted it pepto Bismol, then Taxi cab yellow for my daughters bedroom both he repainted to the colors I had in my head)😂
He’s a natural, he can build practically anything. Thank God bcse I break alot of things, 😬
It is gorgeous but holy cow gigantic! I admit to really liking the blue with all the natural light and there are actual fabric curtains too.
I have entered the HGTV Dream House sweepstakes every year since it began. I think that I am overdue for one😉. It would be nice to almost know a winner. Good luck!
Oooh. That is a lovely home, and I can see why anyone would be all ::grabby hands:: at the sight of that. I hope you win!
Also, thank you, for changing the email newsletter setting to include the entire text of the posts.
I see that others have also reported Gmail erroneously tagging the latest email with a “This message seems dangerous” warning. I figured it was the HGTV link. Anyway, I did my part and hit the “Looks safe” option. Hopefully, Gmail figures out I still want these emails.
Aside from Gmail, my adblocker has Mailer Lite’s mlsend dot com domain in its list of sites to block. I had to tell it that I don’t need to be warned about the domain. Fingers crossed that these are all just temporary growing pains.
Beautiful pictures and a classic beach retreat! I really like the blue walls, built in reading seat, and bedroom with the pelican picture. But … Florida and too much to manage, so nope. Bonne chance!
It’s a beauty. I’ve entered the HGTV Dream Home Sweepstakes for years but I haven’t won yet. Hope springs eternal.
Was sure my sister would like the house when I saw it.
She did.
No matter what possible drawbacks I tried to bring up (taxes,hurricanes,flooding,etc.), she kept saying the same thing:
“Enter the contest.” 😸
Beautiful.
But climate change. Sea level rise. Please don’t do it. Just visit.
xxoo,
Jaye
I can’t live there full time we can share if it win 😂🤣😂
It’s very nice but you need to remember capital gains tax and Hurricane insurance. You don’t need hurricane insurance in Central Texas.;-)
Hahaha The bugs was my thought also! Well we could all chip in for tax $ if you win. Good Luck.
I have been entering every day too. It’s the first one I really ❤️!
Love the color changes…persimmon pantry…golden guest bedroom.
I’m glad that architects are beginning to find new solutions to “Open Plan” kitchens. If you have kids and need to keep aneye on them when you are cooking, you’ll probably love it. But I have never wanted to have my kitchen completely open to the rest of the house. I think the partially open kitchen where you can hear what’s going on in the living room or dining room is great, because no one has to look at dirty dishes while eating. But that is a pretty house and the problem could easily be solved with room dividers. The blue is lovely.
So pretty, too bad I don’t live in the U.S. and can’t enter…
Anastasia Island is gorgeous. This house has a view of the St. Augustine lighthouse and the Matanzas River. However, the story of that river/inlet and how it got its name is NOT as beautiful. I think this is the best house they have offered!
It is a lovely home with a gorgeous view. I think it would be perfect, and you could write many great books there. 😉 Good luck! I hope you win it.
Gorgeous. I hope you get it. I love a blue kitchen and a good porch.
It is a beautiful house, I can see why you love it and the sub-tropical vibes. Not sure why the houses in the barrier islands are not holding their price as well as the mainland. How much do they get affected by the weather in the fall? Is there another factor? Might be worth a bit of research if you didn’t already.
I know that area – I grew up a little north of there. It’s a gorgeous place. I’d be concerned about the hardiness standing up to hurricanes though. Northeast Florida has been pretty lucky and avoided most of the really big storms, but considering they’ve been more erratic and powerful the past few years, it’s a consideration. Maybe if it’s on the west side of the island it will stand a better chance?
But being that close to St. Augustine and history and the Spanish Quarter (and their bakery)? I’d have trouble resisting. I’d see if I could get a pass to the lighthouse and climb it every week for the view. Gods, now I feel a little homesick thinking about it…if you win, I hope you post pictures!
OMG! That house is practically in the Atlantic Ocean. It IS gorgeous though. There is currently some kind of fight going on with the City over permitting for a seawall(?) aka wall against the Atlantic Ocean. Good Luck on winning! it would be amazing as you “vacation home.”