A quick history: 50 years of Portland’s dream home
The Street of Dreams started in 1976, which makes 2026 the golden anniversary. For five decades it has been the event where Portland-area builders, architects, and designers show off what a “dream home” looks like in that moment. Walk the archive in your head and you can trace the whole arc of Northwest design, from the oak-and-brass kitchens of the 1980s to the great-room open plans of the 2000s to the warm modern and modern-farmhouse looks we see today. The show has run through every kind of market too. Boom years, the 2008 crash, the rate spikes, the pandemic building crunch. It keeps going because it is really two things at once: a design showcase and a barometer for where residential construction is headed. The event is produced by the Home Building Association of Greater Portland, and proceeds support the Home Building Foundation, its charity of choice.Where the 2026 show is: Serres Farms in Oregon City, plus homes on tour
The 2026 show returns to the classic format built around a single featured site. This year that site is Serres Farms in Oregon City, developed by Icon Construction. Set on a hill with sweeping valley views, the featured site brings together seven luxury custom homes from some of the region’s most established builders, with the interior design and landscaping to match. The seven homes at Serres Farms come from Icon Construction, Dez Development, Designer Built Homes, Creekside Homes, Secor Homes, and Earthchoice Construction, which is showing two. Styles range from Northwest contemporary to more timeless luxury, and each one leans on custom floor plans, high-end finishes, and current building tech. What makes the 50th anniversary show stand out is how far it reaches beyond the featured site. The 2026 ON TOUR lineup adds more than 15 homes spread across the metro and the coast, so you can build a tour around whatever part of the region you actually care about. On the ON TOUR roster:- Lake Oswego: TimberRidge Development (Stillwater Vista) and Koval Holdings with Aker Development (Lake Terrace)
- West Linn: Sitara Homes (Open Sky)
- Southwest Portland: The Powell Group (Palatine), open the final weekend of the show only
- Northwest Portland: Crafted Homes and Development (Horizon Crest)
- Cannon Beach: two homes from Haggart Homes (Haystack Hideaway and Elk Cove)
Serres Farms village
On tour
Tap a cluster to fan out the homes
What we are watching for on the tour
We got early access and toured a couple of the homes ahead of opening. We will add our firsthand notes and a video walkthrough below once we have them pulled together. In the meantime, here is what tends to make the Street of Dreams worth the ticket, and what we pay attention to when we walk new construction like this. The show is a preview of finishes and floor plans that show up in normal listings a year or two later. When you see the same detail in three different homes, that is the trend, not a one-off. We watch how builders are handling the things buyers actually ask us about: single-level or main-floor primary suites for people planning to age in place, flexible rooms that flip between office and guest space, indoor-outdoor flow for our long Northwest shoulder seasons, and the quieter stuff like energy efficiency, heat-pump systems, and better insulation that matter more every year our summers run hot. [PLACEHOLDER: firsthand notes on the two homes we toured, plus the YouTube walkthrough embed. Charles to supply home names/builders and the video link.]If you want to go: dates, hours, and tickets
The show runs July 30 through August 23, 2026, open extended weekends only, Thursday through Sunday. Hours are 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. General admission is $29, and children 10 and under are free. Tickets are sold online only, and one ticket gets you one entry into each home on the tour, so hang on to it as you move between sites. The organizers also offer discount codes for veterans and seniors by request. Home addresses, parking details, and the mobile app with turn-by-turn directions are released closer to opening.- iOS/Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/street-of-dreams/id1631067387
- Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com....