Meet the Choose Your Home Giveaway Winner

Lucky Penny

Penny Hawkes received the best 50th birthday present ever. (Officially, it’s August 24th.) Winner of the MyHomeIdeas.com and Southern Living  Choose Your Home Giveaway, this lucky entrant chose the Whisper Mountain's Whisper Creek Cottage for herself, her husband, Ken, and their family to enjoy.

Now residents of LaPlace, Louisiana, the Hawkeses have ties to the mountains and are finally getting a chance to come home. "I was born in Huntersville, and Ken and I met when we were both working in Charlotte." Their careers took them to California and then to Louisiana, but Penny says, "We always said we would retire to North Carolina."