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Homestead Preserve
Virginia's new resort community
combines luxury and conservation
by Paula C. Squires
for Virginia Business Options
March
2006 Bath County’s Allegheny Mountains are a long
way from the fanciful magic of Florida’s Disney
World. Yet Charles Adams, a key player in developing
Celebration, the Walt Disney Co.’s award-winning
planned community adjacent to the Orlando theme park,
believes this unspoiled mountain range has a magic
all its own.
The winding country roads of
Virginia’s highlands
have drawn tourists for generations who come for the
stunning views, the area’s thermal spring-fed
pools and the hospitality offered by the venerable
Homestead resort, in operation since 1766. The area’s
beauty and history inspired Adams and partner Don Killoren
to develop Homestead Preserve, one of Virginia’s
newest and most exclusive resort-home communities.
There will be no more than 450 homes on 2,300 rolling
acres, with lots ranging in size from one-half acre
to 10 acres, and in price from $250,000 to $1 million.
While expensive, these prices buy something that’s
getting hard to come by in 21st-century America: pristine
mountain views protected against development.
Initially, Adams and his company,
Celebration Associates, purchased 11,500 acres of
mountain and valley land
between Hot Springs and Warm Springs. But early on
the group sold 9,250 acres to The Nature Conservancy for $6.2 million and put
an additional 935 acres into permanent conservation easements with the Virginia
Outdoors Foundation. The nonprofit Nature Conservancy created the Warm Springs
Mountain Preserve, a move that protects 13 miles of mountain ridges from commercial
encroachment. “This is one of the largest and most ecologically significant
tracts of private forest land in Virginia, particularly in the central Appalachians,” says
Michael Lipford, the conservation group’s executive director in Virginia.
The land, along with a tract in the adjoining George Washington National Forest,
enabled the group to put together 70,000 contiguous acres that will be a protected
habitat for the region’s forests and animals, including black bear, bobcat
and migratory fowl. “The interesting thing is that the Ingalls family [longtime
earlier owners of The Homestead] bought the mountain when they were running the
hotel to protect the views. So, even though our work is in conservancy, we have
helped fulfill this desire to protect the backdrop of the hotel,” says
Lipford.
Since the project’s first 139
lots went on sale in January 2005, 117 have sold, and
three other purchased lots have been resold, bringing
the community’s
sales to more than $50 million. Celebration Associates has invested $39 million
in planning and infrastructure so far. Construction is under way on
some homes, with the first move-ins expected this
fall. Lou Moelchert, the 64-year-old
principal of Private Advisors, a Richmond investment
firm, is building a 5,000-square-foot
second home close to The Homestead. “This is a wonderful area where we
love to vacation. You have the amenities — the golf and trout fishing,
which I’m interested in — and it’s near enough to Richmond
where the entire family can get together in two and half to three hours,” he
says. In keeping with the preservation
theme, buyers select from home plans that blend with
the region’s
architectural heritage. The styles, which include Highlands
Farmhouse, High-lands Arts and Crafts and English Romantic, are the result
of more than two years of study. Such attention to
detail is what attracted architect
Kahlil Hamady to Homestead Preserve. Hamady, principal owner of Hamady Architects
in Char-lottesville, has purchased two lots. He plans to build a second home
on one lot for personal use; the second lot, owned with partners, is an investment.
Even though he has the Blue
Ridge Mountains in Charlottesville, “every
time I come here, I want to stay here,” says Hamady, whose company is doing
design work for other home buyers. “This is a very unique landscape, because
of the natural setting and the cultural history of the place — the springs
[in Warm Springs], the hotel, the history of the valley. With a developer coming
in and very carefully taking into consideration these things — we rarely
see that approach in development these days,” says Hamady.
His clients are mostly baby
boomers building second homes. They hail from Roanoke,
Norfolk and Charleston,
W. Va. “They’re all doing it for family,” says
Hamady.
“Everyone is thinking
about what they are going to leave for the children.
They want a place for the family to gather and share
memorable experiences
to pass on.”
Even though he can’t build right away, 48-year-old Bobby Fauntleroy of
Richmond bought a lot in March 2005. While the site doesn’t have a view
of the mountains, it’s close to one of The Homestead’s revered
golf courses.
“We think it’s a great investment and a great place to build
a home in the next few years to enjoy all the outdoor activities,” says
Fauntleroy, a senior vice president at First Market Bank in Richmond. Five years
ago, he considered a similar purchase in a community near The Greenbrier resort
in West Virginia. “But it wasn’t the right time for us,” he
recalls.
Steps to preserve the area’s rural character through conservation are definitely
a plus. “I don’t think they could have done this deal without the
conservation angle,” says Fauntleroy. “It protects you from an investment
standpoint in that a limited number of lots will be available … It’s
not going to be a community that, 20 years from now, you can’t find a
piece of the mountain without a house on it.”
By staying away from the high
ridges — which are environmentally sensitive
and more expensive to develop — Homestead Preserve can charge a premium
for the unbroken views. Homes in the project’s first phase will range in
value from $750,000 to more than $3 million, according to Steven Schneider, director
of sales and marketing. Phase two sales of 42 additional lots begin this month
and usher in higher prices — starting at $345,000 — which include
the cost of membership to The Homestead. The initiation, fee is $45,000, with
annual membership dues of $3,150 for a golf and tennis membership and $2,205
for a social membership.
The membership entitles homeowners
to use the resort’s
amenities. It was not included or required during the
first phase of sales, although a majority
of homebuyers purchased a membership with the initiation fee then priced at
$40,000.
Just as the planned community
of Celebration, Fla., has been praised as a model
for New Urbanism, Adams
wants Homestead Preserve to set a precedent for what
he calls “New Ruralism.” While New Urbanism focuses on creating projects
where people can live, work, shop and play, the mission is different in rural
areas. Here it’s important, says Adams, to set aside tracts so they won’t
be swallowed up by sprawl. “I grew up in a small farming community in southeast
Arkansas on the Mississippi. I’ve enjoyed getting back to that,” says
Adams, who moved his family to Bath County more than three years ago so he could
serve as the project’s managing director.
He enjoys the area’s small-town feel, county fairs and “everyone
rooting for the same football team on Friday nights, because there’s only
one.” With the area’s hiking, fishing, horseback riding and skiing, “our
kids have more to do here than they did in Charlotte or Orlando.” While
there are conveniences — homes are being wired with fiber-optic technology
for high-speed Internet — Homestead Preserve is out to prove that development
and rural land stewardship need not be conflicting goals.
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