HGTV’s “Green” Home
If you’ve caught any HGTV lately, then you already know about their Green Home sweepstakes. Just like their annual Dream Home giveaway, you can enter (once a day through tomorrow, by the way) to win an extravagant home in a gorgeous location (holy property taxes, batman). The obvious twist this time is that the home is riding the eco-friendly bandwagon and is constructed using the latest and greatest in green building techniques.
So as we drove through South Carolina toward our Florida vacation a few weeks ago, we spotted billboards advertising tours of the Green Home, which is located just off I-95 in Hilton Head. “Perfect,” we thought, “we’ll make a pit stop, take the tour and give our lovely readers the inside scoop.”
But it turns out that HGTV had another kind of “green” in mind because the tours were far from free. It would’ve cost $40 for the two of us to take the 15-20 minute tour. And we couldn’t even drive by the house to sneak a complimentary glimpse because only the chartered shuttles full of paying customers were allowed anywhere near it.
Call us cheap, but isn’t that a bit much? It’s twice as much as two movie tickets (which entertain for two hours) and about four times as much as a design magazine subscription for the year. Talk about makin’ bacon. Especially for an contest that’s aiming to make green mainstream and accessible. Plus, they have insanely major sponsors for the whole project who are paying an arm and a leg to be included. Don’t they want as much exposure as they can get? Back when Sherry worked for Country Home magazine, they made it as easy as possible (read: free, free, free) for the public to tour their show homes and gawk at all the goods inside. Nary a dollar bill was exchanged.
Fortunately, HGTV offers a great virtual tour on their website for zero buckaroos. Which is definitely more our style.
I guess we’ll just have to give you guys that inside scoop once we win it. With a kitchen like that, a fella can dream, can’t he?
(Post by John)
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Comments
Yeah… love the green home with the big SUV in front of the garage. very environment-friendly indeed.
My husband and I got into a huge daydream session just last night about the green home sweepstakes… I almost hate stuff like this, it’s such a TEASER!!
Hello…I was wondering..are you having problems entering by email. Everyday I have tried to submit my entry and all I get is an OOPS! please try again. I am very disturbed by this. Do you know if they have already picked a winner or if there is something that I am not including. It accepted my email for the first week and after that,,OOPS! I enter all of these contests and I was hoping that you could tell me if you were running into the same problem that I am…thank you.
PS I will let you spend the weekend there when I win!!
Hey Sharon,
I think the problem is that last Friday (the 9th) was the last day people could enter- but HGTV should definitely remove the entry form so people aren’t confused. Glad you got a week of entering under your belt though! Good luck and we’ll definitely take you up on the weekend vacay if you’re the chosen one.
xo,
Sherry
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That’s insane! You’re right, they have incredible sponsors so charging for tours shouldn’t be necessary at all. That being said, my husband and I are excited for them to just announce us as the winners so we can kick those tour-buses off our lawn already! *snicker snicker*