Local art teacher pins to the top in Pardee Homes' guest designer contest

In the early 1980s, Nanette Bratton and her family moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Las Vegas and into a Pardee Home in Spring Valley.

“It was really our family’s dream house, with a grand staircase and so much space,” said Bratton, an art teacher at a private school. “That house inspired a lot of big ideas and dreams as a child.”

More than three decades later, Bratton has reconnected with Pardee — not as a new homeowner but as the winner of the builder’s Pinterest Dream Room contest.

In July and August, Pardee invited its social media followers and all interested people to be a “guest designer” and help inspire the décor at Horizon Terrace, a new neighborhood scheduled to open in early 2014 in Henderson.

Bratton created and submitted a Pinterest board with ideas for her “dream room,” which included ideas for several rooms. Her creative vision will be brought to life by the builder’s design team at Horizon Terrace, where it will be featured in a loft in one of the neighborhood’s model homes. Bratton received a $500 Pottery Barn gift card and will be included in the neighborhood’s grand opening activities.

“I have been using Pinterest as part of my instruction for the past two years,” Bratton said. “It is a great way to find and pull examples of techniques, design and color and share it in real time with my students and to post class assignments so they’re accessible to students at all times. It really is an art teacher’s dream.”

Kathy Hilty, marketing director for the Southern Nevada division of Pardee Homes, said the contest was a fun way for the company to celebrate its 60th anniversary of building homes in Southern Nevada.

Pardee has built homes for more than 40,000 families in Southern Nevada since 1952.

The builder’s neighborhoods in the Las Vegas Valley include four LivingSmart Homes neighborhoods: Providence in northwest Las Vegas, Sandstone at Camino Eldorado and Ann Road and Eldorado Ridge and Eldorado Heights in the Eldorado master-planned community in North Las Vegas. Other Pardee homes that include LivingSmart features are Durango Ranch, near the intersection of Pebble and Cimarron roads in southwest Las Vegas, and the new Durango Trail neighborhood adjacent to Durango Ranch.

Sales offices are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday. For more information, visit www.pardeehomes.com; call 702-604-3332 or follow the builder on Facebook atwww.fb.com/pardeehomeslasvegas.