The HGTV Dream Home team set its sights west toward California wine country in search of the site for the 2009 HGTV Dream Home. So, HGTV Dream Home planner Jack Thomasson headed west to Northern California and eventually found himself scoping the streets in the city of Sonoma.

“Sonoma is just a charming, beautiful town,” Thomasson says. “The moment you're pulling down Broadway and you see the town square in front of you with city hall, you know you're entering into a place that's pretty special with a kind of dynamic quality about it because there’s all kinds of pedestrian activity; families walking through the square, young couples and picnics. It's just a scenic, idyllic place, and it just felt like it would be a great place for the HGTV Dream Home. But then the challenge was finding a [lot] here in Sonoma, and those opportunities are pretty rare.”

Not many know more about Sonoma’s tight community spirit – and layout – than developer Steve Ledson, who was born here. “I can walk to the church. I can walk to the restaurant. I don't have to get in my car. This is a more quiet, peaceful town. Everybody here knows everybody. We don't have to worry about locking our door around here. It's a family-style life.

So many cities, because of the amount of people [in them] and the way the world's going, they have lost that family touch. But I believe here in Sonoma, through our schools and through our close-knit neighborhood, it's a great lifestyle.”

In addition to the town’s warm, close-knit spirit that attracted the HGTV team to Sonoma, the beauty of the surrounding area also tipped the scale in its favor. “The town of Sonoma is surrounded by beautiful mountains, and when you get – especially in the upper elevations of a house – you can capture those views,” Thomasson says. “But this year, we traded the traditional HGTV Dream Home view for this amazing town of Sonoma. But we didn't have to trade too much because the town is that special, and the views are here.”

Small-town charms and beautiful views weren’t the only factors weighing on those choosing the location. The housing market slowdown played a role, too. “Right now is somewhat of a challenging real-estate time. So what I wanted to do is find an established community, not a community that was going to rely on a lot of future development, but a place where we could position the HGTV Dream Home in a lovely community that was already existing that had the lifestyle that we consider an HGTV Dream Home lifestyle.”