Springfield Area Blog

We have 45 clients actively using this fantastic home finding service.  If you would like to use it, click on the link below and we can register you absolutely free! 

Greetings all,

Just thought you all might want to see the real data about the Springfield area real estate market in 2007 and how it compares to the past couple of years.  Of particular note is that while overall numbers of residential sales were down as a number of units, the average price was actually up year over year!  Our market is still quite stable.  For those of you thinking about buying or selling, I encourage you to call, text or email us so we can show you just how we go about getting maximum sale price for your home as well as negotiating the best price on your new home.  It is not magic, but a proven system we have meticulously crafted to maximize your home's exposure. 

Just Click on the link below to view the statistics.  Knowledge is power! 

Have a great week,

The GnR Team

 2007 Year End Report

Many People wonder exactly how are president is chosen.  It's not as simple as just casting a ballot.  Below will give you a quick breakdown.  Have a favorite candidate?  We would love to hear about it!

How our presidential candidates are chosen

Best Gym/Health Club
Meyer Center
CoxHealth’s medical gym replaced now-closed Club Nutrition & Fitness in the pecking order of Springfield gyms. It has every fitness course and amenity, from racquetball to a sauna to a Subway restaurant.
Runners-up: YMCA(all locations), Ozark Fitness (all locations)

Best Places for a Massage
Grove Spa, Springfield
Spa Chateau, Branson
Grove Spa offers Swedish, deep-tissue and heated river-stone massages, to which you can add services such as foot scrubs or aromatherapy. The price is premium ($40 for 30 minutes of Swedish is entry-level), but so is the experience. In Branson, the new $6 million Spa Chateau offers 10 signature massages in 50- or 80-minute durations, mixing massage styles.
Runners-up: Esthetiques, Massage Envy

Best Place for a Manicure
Grove Spa
A mani is never just a mani. Grove offers an extra dose of professional pampering that makes this the best: A hand massage is always part of the treatment here.
Runners-up: Details Salon, Esthetiques, Dharma Day Spa

Best Personal Trainer
Mark Milsap, CoxHeath
Mark’s name may seem familiar to 417 Magazine readers, as he consulted for an article in which our editor, Gregory Holman, was dragged into running a 5K. Milsap, formerly in law enforcement, is perky and has a winning attitude. He works with both fitness-beginners and fitness-advanced folks at both Meyer Center and Cox North.
Runners-up: Gary King, One On One Bodyworks; Chris Baker, Meyer Center

Best Spa
Grove Spa
Readers sure love Grove Spa… why not make a day of it? Grove sells an “Ultimate Escape” package. During six hours, you get to experience a one-hour massage with aromatherapy, a facial, a Slender Quest body wrap treatment, a manicure and a pedicure, both with a paraffin dip, plus a provided lunch. It’s $330. For just $20 more, you can schedule six one-hour massages at Grove. It’s a great plan to dislodge some of that family/work stress.
Runners-up: Esthetiques, Spa Valencia

Best Hair Salon
Studio 417
It’s not just a hair salon, it’s an architectural gem hosting contemporary art shows. “Atmosphere equals quality,” says a young woman who always has her hair done at Studio 417. “You’re more inclined to trust them to do a style you’ll like if the place doesn’t look dated.” Owner Paul Catlett also sends the stylists to New York each year for continuing education.
Runners-up: ViVo, Details
  Source: 417 Magazine

    Do you agree,  let us know.  Aundria Spa on South National has an excellent reputation and yet is consistently  left out, why?  What axe do they have to grind.  It is a fantastic facility.

5 Best 417-land Movie Mentions

Not quite a movie mecca, 417-land has still gotten some big-screen nods. Here are our are for the five best flicks with local ties.

(page 1 of 2)

1. Waiting For Guffman (1996)

Movie Cliff’s Notes: Your standard, wacky Christopher Guest mock documentary (think Best in Show and This is Spinal Tap). Small-town Missourians put on a musical as a part of their town’s sesquicentennial celebration. Eccentric characters played by Guest, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey, Catherine O’Hara and Fred Willard have hopes of taking the show to Broadway.

417-land connection: Waiting for Guffman is set in fictional Blaine, Missouri. Although most major online map sites (Google, MapQuest, MSN) place Blaine on the northwestern edge of 417-land near Nevada, Missouri, Vernon County doesn’t have so much as a plat listed for Blaine. At the beginning of the film, actor Larry Miller, who plays the town’s mayor says, “There’s a saying in Missourah, ‘If you don’t like the weather just wait five minutes.’ In Blaine, with hard work, I think we can get that down to three or four minutes.”

In a deleted scene shown on the DVD extras, Willard’s character talks about his days as a baseball player in high school: “You know I came this close to playing professional ball. They had a tryout camp down in Joplin my senior year in high school, and I knew from the competition around here that no sweat, I’d be signed. But the tryout camp was cancelled, so I never pursued it any further. But I still have what I like to call the St. Louey Cardinals letter from Sam Breadon, the owner, expressing an interest in my playing ball for their organization. Actually, it wasn’t from him. It was from me to the Cardinals showing that I was really interested in playing for them. But there was always that connection with the Red Birds.”

2. The Bourne series (2002–2007)

The Bourne Identity (2002)
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Movie Cliff’s Notes: Matt Damon is an amnesiac on the run from the CIA. The agency changed his name from David Webb to Jason Bourne while training him to be a secret operative.

417-land connection: The devil’s in the details. If you’re paying attention to the quick cutaways of Jason Bourne’s passport, you’ll see Bourne was born David Webb on September 13, 1970 in Nixa, Missouri. (He is also, as shown on his dog tags in Bourne Ultimatum, a Catholic with type O-negative blood.)

3. Million Dollar Baby (2004)

Movie Cliff’s Notes: You know, the one all the reviews ran “SPOILER ALERT” next to. Hilary Swank boxes. Morgan Freeman is inspirational. Clint Eastwood directs. The Academy gives ovation.

417-land connection: The movie was adapted from the short-story anthology Million Dollar Baby: Stories from the Corner, whose author, F. X. Toole, was a longtime resident of the Ozarks. For the greater part of the ’90s, Toole lived on Bull Shoals Lake. The film’s heroine, Maggie Fitzgerald (enter Hilary Swank), is a female prizefighter in Los Angeles who hails from Theodosia—a town on Bull Shoals Lake that’s about 80 miles southeast of Springfield. Toole died in 2002 before seeing his writing adapted and without seeing the movie version take home the Academy Award for Best Picture. Eastwood also won the Oscar for Best Director

4. The Shepherd of the Hills (1941)

Movie Cliff’s Notes: John Wayne plays an Ozark Mountains moonshiner with some pent-up anger. Harry Carey arrives with some positive ideas to turn that frown upside down.

417-land connection: There’s nothing like a tagline that lists a film as “Fury in the wild Ozarks! Hatred unleashed on the Trail of the Lonesome Pine!” In book form, The Shepherd of the Hills was first of several books by Harold Bell Wright that sold a million copies. Wright, who lived all over the United States, was a preacher living in 417-land when he published the book in 1907.

Because the novel saw such widespread popularity and was set it Branson, it has been credited with jumpstarting the town’s tourism boom. The 98-minute flick, however, was filmed in Big Bear Lake, California. It’s also not bad to be connected to a little John Wayne history. The Shepherd of the Hills was the legendary cowboy’s first color film.

5. Road House (1989)

Movie Cliff’s Notes: The flick is set in Jasper, Missouri, where Patrick Swayze’s character is hired to settle a raucous crew of violent bar patrons.

417-land connection: A classic case of being so bad it’s good, Road House brings us Swayze as a bouncer extraordinaire at Double Deuce in Jasper, Missouri.

The movie wasn’t really filmed in Jasper, which in real life has a population of 1,001 and is located about an hour west of Springfield. A line in the movie talks about “calling a friend in the FBI in Springfield.”

Road House was nominated in several categories for the 1990 Razzie Awards, the self-proclaimed “dis-honors for [the] worst achievements in film.” Road House didn’t take home any Golden Raspberries, even though it was up for Worst Actor, Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay and Worst Supporting Actor.
 

Source:  417 Magazine