About Wilcor

Established since 2007, Wilcor Homes designs and builds beautiful, distinctive homes that reflect and enhance the lifestyle of our clients. With open-concept plans and natural elements like stone, timbers, and large view windows, our homes have a touch of West Coast inspiration with a modern feel.

Creating your dream home is a collaborative process. From concept to completion, we ensure our clients feel engaged and excited, providing expertise, guidance and superior craftsmanship to bring your vision to life. 

Wilcor Homes is the premier builder at Spring Lake Ranch, a lakeside community in Parkland County, Alberta. Our custom designs have been featured in Best Home, the Edmonton Journal, and Homes & Land. We build in locations throughout Parkland County and beyond.

Meet the Husband-and-Wife Team Behind Wilcor Homes

Here, Rainbow Williams and Sarah Corker open up about their collaborative design process and how they help clients through the custom-build journey.

As a custom builder, what are the key things you’ve done to succeed in a challenging market?

Sarah: For us the main key has been building quality homes that showcase the kind of features people consistently love. We know that most home buyers in the area are looking for bungalows with features like the 3 car garage, finished basement, large windows, hardwood flooring, and custom cabinetry.

Rainbow: We’ve stayed focused on what’s important to us. Quality construction, strong relationships with our clients, and building in limited quantities. We can’t control the market, but we can control what we do. Working with experienced contractors and staying current with building technologies and design, we attract clients that often become friends.

Can you tell us a bit about your process as a builder and designer? How do you combine your ideas when it comes to design?

S: Initially clients usually meet with me to learn about the style of homes we build. From there, Rainbow and I will sit down with them and discuss the building specifics of Wilcor Homes. We work on the home design together and have a lot of fun at this stage. We love talking plans, looking at elevations and trying new ideas. I then help people make their selections, from exterior colours and materials to interior finishings.

I always say that I have the fun job and Rainbow has the challenging one in that I get to design and choose all the elements and he has to execute them and make it all a reality. Perhaps I am the dreamer and he is the realist!

R: We have a consistent process that each client is lead through. Typically, this starts with a meeting on site in one of our homes, either finished or under construction. Meeting the clients together reinforces our teamwork and allows them to see how we work together. As our clients are different, so are we. Sarah prefers a visual, tactile perspective with materials and plans, whereas I am far more conceptual. These different styles compliment each other, like we do, and allows for a strong connection.

The homes you build feature a lot of natural materials like wood and stone, as well as oversized windows that bring in a lot of light. These elements will seemingly never go out of style! But what about design trends? What’s been inspiring you in the design world recently that you’ve showcased in your homes?

S: I love design and working with the newest trends while also building “forever homes”. It’s an evolving industry with new looks, materials and finishing techniques coming into play all the time.

In my opinion, the more neutral the backdrop (paint and flooring) the more the home can grow and change with trends. A person can easily change a light fixture or cabinet pull to evolve with the times but to re-paint an entire home is a lot of work and expense

Currently, I am loving all the whites (both walls and cabinets) that are still on the scene but then pairing it with a hit of wood, metal or contrasting black. Tile is also an area that is really fun with more elaborate installation (herringbone, chevron, stacked and staggered techniques) and different shapes such as octagon, large format or super small format. A person can add texture and dimension without going crazy with colours.

R: Sarah tends to drive our “trendy” aspects in the homes. We stay current by working with industry leaders for lighting, plumbing and flooring as well as drawing inspiration from design publications. For me the installation of practical and functional products with new technology is exciting. LED lighting, smart wiring, solar power and innovative kitchen concepts are a few areas I really enjoy exploring. Lastly, everyone likes a good shower, so using large or small format tiles and high quality plumbing fixtures all contained with 10mm glass makes a master ensuite that much better.

A lot of people dream of building a custom home, but feel overwhelmed by all the decisions involved. How do you help guide the process?

S: We truly value all of the relationships we have developed over the years with our clients, with our suppliers and with our trades. Our focus on communication really assists our clients in staying well informed with the building process and allows them to come to us with questions and feedback along the way. We appreciate that custom building is a large undertaking for our clients so we do our best to ease the process. Part of this comes from our 13 years of experience in the industry and part of this comes from having built our own custom home so we totally understand what our clients are going through.

Right from the beginning of financing and design, we guide our clients. We work with their lawyers and bankers to get everything in place. We then have a step-by-step process for them to make all of their home selections. Our suppliers are also a key part of this as they meet with our clients and assist them with choosing their products and educating them on the various options.

R: It starts from our first interaction with each client. We outline the process from start to finish, along with putting clear timelines on each decision. Then we work together with our suppliers and clients to ensure that we are staying on budget and on time. Lastly, we perform a review of all the material selections multiple times to ensure that the products are working together, and the clients are satisfied. Our extensive experience building custom homes help our clients feel confident as they navigate the selection process.

Lastly, how much does the lot size and views affect the kind of home that’s built on it? How do you optimize the property features?

S: We call this Site-Specific Design and it’s a very important part of designing a home. We spend quite a bit of time on the vacant lot to determine the best views, optimal light exposure and maximum privacy. From here, we design the home to feature all of these aspects. Placement of windows is a big part of this as well as the decks. Each person is unique; some want to feature their deck to take in the hot, west sun, for example, while others prefer the morning light.

R: As we plan the home on the lot, we aim to take advantage of any views as well as conditions such as passive solar (specific window placements to take advantage of light and the sun), location of trees for privacy, and even the direction of the window openings for capturing cross breezes.