Right-Sizing in Edmond: Low-Maintenance Luxury Homes Without the Upkeep

The house has not caught up to how you actually live. Three bedrooms sit empty upstairs, the dining room gets used twice a year, and you’re still heating and cooling square footage that nobody walks through.

For a lot of Edmond homeowners this is where right-sizing stops looking like a compromise. You trade square footage you stopped using for better finishes, better gathering space, and a yard somebody else takes care of. Most people who make the move end up in a smaller house that’s better than the one they left.

Here is how to think about it and what to look for.

Right-sizing and downsizing are not the same thing

Downsizing is a subtraction problem. Less house, less money, less of everything, usually because circumstances forced the issue.

Right-sizing starts from a different question: which parts of your current home do you actually use, and what would you build if you only had to build those?

For most people making this move, the answer is a shorter list than they expect. The primary suite. A kitchen that opens to where people sit. One guest room, maybe two. A study or flex room that absorbs the hobby, the home office and the occasional grandchild sleepover. Outdoor living that gets used in October rather than looked at from indoors.

What comes off the list is usually the formal dining room, the bonus room over the garage, the second and third guest bedrooms nobody has slept in since 2019, and the stairs.

The budget doesn’t necessarily shrink with the square footage, and that surprises people. A 2,600 square foot home built to your specification, with the cabinetry and the appliances and the shower you actually want, can cost more than the 3,800 square foot house you’re leaving. That’s the trade most right-sizers are happy to make, because the money moves from rooms you maintain into rooms you live in.

The square footage sweet spot

Across Bill Roberts communities, the homes that right-sizers gravitate toward are between roughly 2,400 and 3,600 square feet.

Camden Park homes run from 2,200 to 3,200 square feet. Homes at The Villas at Annecy run 2,500 to 3,200 square feet, and Waterstone’s courtyard homes start higher, in the 3,000 square foot range and up.

The band holds at both ends: below about 2,300 square feet, hosting Thanksgiving gets difficult and the guest room starts doubling as storage, while above about 3,600 you’re back to cleaning rooms you don’t enter.

Bedroom count tells you more than square footage does. Three is the figure that keeps coming up, and it’s the standard configuration in available homes across Camden Park, Waterstone and the Villas. Two is often one too few, since the second bedroom becomes an office and then there’s nowhere for the family to sleep. Four means you’re heating a room for one week a year.

Features that earn their place at this stage

“A lot of the decisions that affect a homeowner ten or fifteen years down the road are made before the first house ever goes vertical. Things like drainage, grading, lot orientation, landscaping, common-area maintenance and even how a home sits on the lot can all impact long-term upkeep. When those details are thoughtfully planned from the beginning, the homeowner may never notice them, and that’s really the point. Good community design should make owning the home easier, not create problems they have to solve later.” -Cody Reed, Sales Manager

Ask a couple who’s right-sized three years ago what they would insist on next time, and their list would be practical rather than aspirational.

First-floor living comes up first. Camden Park is built around it, with the primary suite and main living spaces on the ground floor and flexible rooms that can be finished however you want. It’s not about mobility today. It’s about not rebuilding a house in twelve years because the stairs became a problem, and it’s worth its own conversation, which is where we’re headed in November.

After that:

• A primary shower without a curb or a step, done in a way that reads as design rather than accommodation
• Wider hallways and doorways, which cost almost nothing at framing and can’t be added later
• A laundry room on the same floor as the primary suite, ideally near the closet
• A covered outdoor space with a fireplace or heaters, so the patio works in November and not just in May
• Storage designed for two people who have lived somewhere for thirty years, because right-sizing doesn’t mean you got rid of the Christmas decorations
• Enough guest parking that hosting eleven people doesn’t put four cars on the street

The one thing that people forget is the garage. If you’re keeping a boat, a golf cart, or a project car, that decision belongs in the first design conversation, not in the third.

Maintenance-free living: what is covered and what is not

This is the part buyers get wrong most often, and the part worth asking about directly before you sign anything.

“Maintenance-free” almost never means the association handles everything. Simply put, a defined list of things moves off your plate and the rest stay on it. At Waterstone, the courtyard homes are built with year-round maintenance-free lawns and masonry privacy walls. Camden Park advertises maintained lawns as part of what you are buying, and at The Villas at Annecy the association handles lawn care as well, alongside a private clubhouse and pool reserved for Villa homeowners.

Across Camden Park, Waterstone and The Villas at Annecy, the coverage is the same. Year-round lawn maintenance includes mowing, edging, weeding and blowing, along with fertilizing, weed spraying, bed care and tree trimming. Seasonal flowers are the common exception and carry an added cost.

What changes between communities is the annual cost. Lawn care runs about $2,419 a year at Camden Park, $3,400 at The Villas at Annecy, and $5,075 at Waterstone.

Saturday mornings still start with the mower. The honest version of this is worth saying out loud. A maintenance-free lawn doesn’t make a home maintenance-free. The roof is still yours. So are the HVAC filters, the water heater, the gutters, and the paint. What the arrangement buys you is the recurring weekly obligation, the one that decides whether you can leave for eleven days in October without asking a neighbor for a favor.

For most people at this stage, that’s the obligation worth buying back.

Why the gate matters more than it used to

Every community mentioned here is gated. Camden Park, Waterstone and Annecy all sit behind controlled access, and for right-sizers that turns out to matter for a reason that has little to do with crime statistics.

It’s about leaving.

If your next chapter includes a month in Colorado or a stretch of winter somewhere warmer, the question isn’t whether the house is safe. It’s whether you spend the first two days of the trip thinking about it. Controlled access, a lawn that gets mowed on schedule, and neighbors who notice an unfamiliar car add up to a house you can close the door on.

Where this already exists in Edmond

Three Bill Roberts communities fit the right-sizing profile, and they’re not interchangeable.

Camden Park is the most direct fit. Gated, priced from the upper $600s, built around first-floor living with open living spaces and flexible rooms. The clubhouse near the entrance has a pool, a fitness center, a full-service kitchen, a beverage and coffee bar, and a grill and firepit outside. There’s a two-acre park and a walkway network inside the gates. Mercy Hospital, Natural Grocers, and a run of Edmond restaurants are minutes away, which matters more at this stage than it did at forty. 

The Villas at Annecy is the smallest, at 40 lots, with a private clubhouse and pool reserved for Villa homeowners and access to the 16-acre Central Park at Annecy with its lakes and more than a mile of walking trail. The Villas start from a set of base floor plans rather than a fixed catalog, so the plan starts from how you live now instead of a layout drawn for a family of five.

Waterstone is the high end of this group, starting in the mid-$900s across just 65 homesites. Most of them are side courtyard or side and backyard courtyard residences with masonry privacy walls and year-round maintenance-free lawns. The clubhouse has a pool, a fitness center, and a golf simulator.

“We were coming from a much larger home, so initially we worried about what we might miss. What surprised us was how quickly we realized we didn’t need all of that extra space. We still have plenty of room when family and friends come over, but the house is much easier to maintain and fits the way we live now. We thought downsizing would feel like a compromise, but it really hasn’t.” -Waterstone homeowner

Selling the family home and timing the build

The timing question is the one that keeps people from starting, and it’s a fair concern.

A custom build runs months, not weeks, and the worry is simple: sell too early and you’re renting, sell too late and you’re carrying two properties. Neither is a catastrophe, but both cost money and they’re not fun.

A few things make it manageable. Start the design conversation well before you list, because design and selections take longer than construction on a right-sized home and that work costs you nothing but time. Get the build schedule in writing early, then set your listing date against it. Ask your lender about bridge financing and whether a construction-to-permanent loan makes sense in your situation, since the answer depends on how much equity is sitting in the current house.

The practical advantage of a design/build firm here is that one schedule governs the whole thing. When design, selections, permitting and construction sit with the same team, the move-in date is a real number you can plan a closing around rather than an estimate that shifts each time a subcontractor does.

The house your grandchildren will want to visit

There is a version of right-sizing that goes too far.

It’s the one where the guest room becomes a den, the yard becomes a patio, and holidays quietly relocate to your daughter’s house because there is no room at yours. It happens gradually and nobody decides it on purpose.

If having family come to you matters, that requirement belongs in the plan from the beginning, and it’s more specific than “a guest room.” It means a second bedroom with a bathroom near it, a kitchen island people can stand around while somebody cooks, an outdoor space that works when there are fourteen people instead of two, and enough parking that the third car isn’t on the street.

A community pool and clubhouse do a lot of work here. When the grandkids visit Camden Park, Waterstone or the Villas, the afternoon has somewhere to go that isn’t your living room.

Ready to find the right size?

If the house you’re in stopped fitting a few years ago, the useful next step isn’t a listing appointment. It’s a floor plan conversation.

Since 1982, Bill Roberts Custom Homes has built more than 500 homes across Edmond, including seven gated communities across town. As a design/build firm, the same team handles the design, the selections, the construction, and the warranty visits at 30 days and 11 months.

Come look at Camden Park, Waterstone and The Villas at Annecy, walk through what you use and what you don’t in your current home, and see the 3D rendering of the alternative before anyone breaks ground.

You’ve arrived. Welcome home.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between right-sizing and downsizing?

Downsizing means buying less house, usually to spend less. Right-sizing means matching the house to how you actually live now, which often means fewer bedrooms and less total square footage but better finishes, better outdoor living and less upkeep. Plenty of right-sizers spend the same or more than their current home is worth, because the money shifts from unused rooms into the ones they use every day.

How much square footage does a right-sized home need?

Most land between 2,400 and 3,600 square feet with three bedrooms. Three is the number that keeps a home functional, since one bedroom almost always becomes an office and you still want somewhere for family to sleep. Below about 2,300 square feet, hosting gets tight. Above 3,600, you are maintaining rooms you do not use.

What does maintenance-free living actually include in an Edmond gated community?

It varies less than buyers expect. At Camden Park, Waterstone and The Villas at Annecy, the association handles year-round lawn maintenance, which covers mowing, edging, weeding and blowing, along with fertilizing, weed spraying, bed care and tree trimming. Seasonal flowers are an added cost. Lawn care runs about $2,419 a year at Camden Park, $3,400 at The Villas at Annecy, and $5,075 at Waterstone. The roof, HVAC, water heater, gutters and interior maintenance stay with the homeowner.

Are there low-maintenance luxury homes in Edmond with single-story floor plans?

Yes. Camden Park, Waterstone and The Villas at Annecy are gated Edmond communities with maintained or maintenance-free lawns, clubhouses and pools, and single-story floor plans that suit buyers who no longer need a family-sized house. None of them are age-restricted, and anyone can buy in any of them.

Should I build or buy a move-in ready home when I right-size?

If you have a specific list of what you want and a timeline with room in it, building gets you the layout without compromise. If your current home sells faster than expected or your list is shorter, a move-in ready home in one of the same communities gets you there sooner. Both paths exist inside these three communities, so the question comes down to your timeline and how particular you are about the floor plan.