Sonoma Dream Home Giveaway

Someone, somewhere in America, got the lucky news last week that they will be moving to a fancy dream house in Sonoma.

Or at least, they will have the opportunity ? if they can pull together the taxes and upkeep on a $2.5 million ?farmhouse,? professionally decorated and fully equipped with stocked wine cellar, ?petite vineyard,? large screen TV and matching dog house.

The winner, picked from among 39 million entries in a drawing on March 3, will be disclosed during a 30-minute TV special, HGTV Dream Home Giveaway 2009, airing on the network at 8 p.m. tonight.

The winner will be chauffered by limousine on April 17 to their new home. At that time they will get a tour, which will be filmed for a future broadcast, and be presented with keys to the property.

If you haven?t already received a visit from a film crew, don?t start packing. It?s not you. The also-rans include many people from Sonoma County and even Sonoma itself who were hoping to upgrade to a 3,700 square-foot home or simply to cash out their earnings.

?I entered. But I was just in it for the money, frankly,? laughed Karen Gardner, a dental hygienist who already has a nice spread on 50 acres in nearby Glen Ellen. ?I figured maybe I could give it to one of my kids. I?d have had to take out another line of credit if I had won. And then I would have sold all the furnishings on eBay.?

Leslie Vaughn of Sonoma said she entered twice every day ? using both her own name and e-mail and her husband Kevin?s. She was really hoping to win for her niece, who lives in Henderson and wants desperately to move back to the Sonoma area where her mother lives.

?I have been doing positive affirmations,? said Vaughn, who said she figured the taxes alone would be $2,000 a month ? more than her current rent. ?I?ve driven past it a zillion times. And when my niece came into town, the first thing she wanted to see was the Dream House. I do feel that if by some miracle I won, it would be for them.?

The network?s newest Dream Home, built by Santa Rosa General Contractor Bruce Lee with Sonoma developer and hotelier Steve Ledson, is set on the perimeter of Armstrong Estates, a luxury subdivision of custom-built fantasy homes that Ledson has been developing for some 20 years on Sonoma?s pricey east side.

Ledson said 4,253 people paid $20 apiece to tour the house over the last two months, raising $85,000 for his family charity, the Ledson Harmony Foundation for Children. The non-profit organization grants wishes for children undergoing personal or family hardships.

Emily Yarborough, a spokeswoman for HGTV, said both electronic and paper entries had an equal chance of winning. Every entry, whether by mail or e-mail, was assigned a bin number. Balls with all the bin numbers were then put into a large drum. Network president Jim Samples pulled one ball from the drum to determine which bin he would draw the winner from. Then the winner was chosen.

This is the 13th Dream Home, each picked for its fantasy getaway location, that the network will give away. In truth, a combination of crushing taxes and upkeep costs combined with the faraway locations has forced all but two winners to quickly sell off their winnings. And the other two have subsequently sold.

Don and Shelly Cruz, who won a 5,500 square foot barn-style mansion in Tyler, Tex., complete with two-story boathouse in 2005, tried desperately to stretch beyond his means to live in the lakeside house. But, unable to pay the property taxes and teetering on foreclosure, they auctioned off the home for $1.3 million in January, less than the assessed value of $1.8 million.

Ledson said he?s prepared to buy back the Sonoma Dream Home if it doesn?t pencil out for tonight?s winner.

?Whatever I would ask for it, I probably would be lucky if I got my money back because people just aren?t spending money now,? said the developer, who said it cost about $2.3 million to build. ?It?s a very nice house. It?s got a lot of amenities. And in time the values are going to come back. Will they be as high as they were when the bubble burst? Not for awhile.?

Ledson, who also has a winery and the luxe Ledson Hotel on the Sonoma Plaza, recently sold a house down the street from the Dream Home for $2.3 million. But it had been on the market for over a year. Another one also several doors down that he built but no longer owns, is on the market for slightly under $1 million.

The hoopla has brought a lot of publicity to Sonoma, a nice boost in a flagging economy. HGTV has promoted the charms of the historic wine country town on its Web site. And many people have trekked to Sonoma to either tour the house or view it from the road. Most came from the greater Bay Area although a few diehards, said Ledson, flew in from other states.

?People thought it was exciting,? said Kirsten Stewart, co-owner of Deuce Restaurant on Broadway. She said a number of customers asked for directions to the Dream House eight blocks away.

Vaughn said the giveaway has been a bright spot in a gloomy winter of bad economic news.

?People could get their hopes up and be excited about something,? she laughed. ?Live the dream. It was a fun thing.?