The uniquely designed homes, the company’s first in the U.S., start from $1.3 million to $1.9 million.
FRISCO — The first time Ravi Vanjani and his wife Harshika visited the model home of their new community, they were sold on one thing — that they were taken by surprise.
Ravi, 37, is a vice president of product management for JPMorgan Chase in Plano, and Harshika is a developer for Uber Freight in Frisco. The couple currently live in Carrollton and will soon move into a development like no other in North Texas.
The Vanjanis are building a 4,000-square-foot home for roughly $1.5 million in the 56-acre Tapestry community by Indian company Total Environment Homes along Little Bluestem Lane in east Frisco.
Ravi & Harshika Vanjani stand in front of their future home in the Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
The community will include 121 homes with unconventional roofs topped with grass designed to take the place of the greenery that existed before the homes were built.
The builder poured environmentally conscious features into its floor plans. Ravi pointed out that almost every room — on both levels — enters an outdoor space.
“You know what you’re walking into when you look at a house; a room here, a room there,” Vanjani said. “You don’t get things that catch you actually by surprise in houses anymore, so this house was very different in that regard.”
From India to Frisco
Total Environment Homes Founder Kamal Sagar in one of his model homes in the Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
The community is the work of Kamal Sagar, an architect who lives in Bangalore, India, but frequently travels to the states.
In 1996, when he was running an architectural practice, Sagar tried to buy a home for himself but found builders were focused more on marketing and fads than designing with homebuyers in mind.
Wanting something more thoughtfully done and meaningfully designed, he started Total Environment, which has since built both single-family homes and apartment towers in India.
In Frisco, Sagar is bringing his work to the U.S. for the first time.
“We just felt that the product that we have can work in other parts of the world as well, and we wanted to check that out and prove that for ourselves,” he said.
“The reason it works all the way on the other side of the planet, for a completely different lifestyle in different climates and everything, is because it is authentically designed around a family’s needs.”
The barrel ceiling is a distinct feature in the Total Environment homes in the Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
In 2016, Sagar was looking to build in the U.S. and found a piece of land in San Francisco, but realized it would be a complicated process to get the homes approved and that costs would be high.
Sagar said he ran into a customer in Bangalore who recommended he not build in California and instead build in Frisco, citing its rapid growth and corporate relocations.
A real estate agent found the property along Rowlett Creek with 900 trees — perfect for the environmentally savvy builder.
“I came here and saw it and really fell in love with it,” Sagar said.
Sawtooth windows are another unique feature in the Total Environment homes Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
Sagar said he bought it for a reason nobody else would — water and trees made parts of the property undevelopable. For Sagar, who aimed to connect people with nature, those elements were perfect.
“This property is really beautiful,” Sagar said. “These water bodies, they attract a lot of wildlife. There’s actually a set of birds that migrate I think from Canada, they stop here at this place, and then they continue from here.”
The city of Frisco approved the project in 2018. The project started sales in January 2021, but pandemic-related supply chain issues paused construction for about six months.
Total Environment homes are being built in the Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
The company has sold three homes to customers and is building five additional homes that will be available for sale. The company hasn’t yet started a big marketing push.
“Back in India, we are a very, very strong brand,” with “rocking” sales, Sagar said. “We will hit that here as well pretty soon.”
Natural focus
Total Environment homes in the Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
When driving past homes in Tapestry, the first thing that stands out is the grass-covered rooftops.
Sagar says they have many environmental perks. The thermal mass of the roof keeps the home cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, and it reduces rainwater runoff.
In addition to the greenery on the roof, homes have grass-covered courtyards on both floors that connect to most rooms that people can walk out on.
“It just gives you a very positive feeling and hopefully inspires you,” Sagar said.
The terrace is a unique feature of the Total Environment homes in the Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
The homes also have six geothermal wells below them that go about 300 feet into the ground, and the water is at a constant temperature that heats and cools, according to Sagar.
“When there was this massive freeze a couple of years back in January and everything was in bad shape, this place was nice and crisp and warm inside,” he said.
An automaker’s approach
Sagar aims to mimic the process and the reliability of automobile manufacturing rather than the typical techniques of large-scale homebuilders.
“You can get into a car and drive for miles, and maybe thunderstorm and lightning and hail stones and whatever, you’re never going to worry about water coming into the car,” he said. “But homes all over the world, they have leakages, they have sinks getting clogged, you have plumbing problems or electrical problems.”
Total Environment homes in the Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
To aim for better quality, Sagar decided to handle many elements of the homes in-house. The company produces some materials such as doors and windows itself and offers its own furniture as an option for buyers.
Like an automaker, Total Environment adopted a fixed-product approach in 2008, with labeled products that it iterates on.
The Frisco community will offer three models: the 3,233-square-foot V30, the 4,394-square-foot V40 and the 5,472-square-foot V50.
Total Environment homes in the Tapestry neighborhood in Frisco, Texas on Friday August 18, 2023. (Lawrence Jenkins / Special Contributor)
The starting prices for models range from $1.3 million to $1.9 million before customization. Three- and four-bedroom floor plans come standard, but a fifth bedroom can be added.
“It’s a home product that evolves with time, so you do version one, version two, version three, version four,” Sagar said. “That’s what happened in the automobile industry. Every model keeps improving, you keep learning from the previous model and making it better and better and better.”
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Source: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/real-estate/2023/09/05/india-company-builds-million-dollar-homes-with-grass-covered-rooftops-in-frisco/