Building Nevada - March 2001

The Wilderness Next Door

St. James’s Village Answers Call of the Wild

by Linda Fine

The high-end master-planned community of St. James’s Village is now a familiar and well-known landmark within the Truckee Meadows in Northern Nevada. If the name sounds familiar, it may be because National Land Corporation, St. James’s parent, also owns the St. James’s Club in Antigua, commercial holdings in Miami and residential property and timeshares in Oregon.

Located at the base of Slide Mountain adjacent to the Mt. Rose Wilderness, St. James’s Village has the Toiyabe National Forest as a natural privacy barrier. It offers a gated neighborhood where only deer, coyotes, myriad birds and other forest critters get by the gatekeeper without scrutiny. Because mule deer migrate through the acreage and the feeling of undisturbed territory is important to most property owners, no fences are allowed on the parcel perimeters.

"We try to maintain pristine nature here," said Rick Haygood, director of sales and marketing for St. James’s Village Inc., an in-house real estate agency for the developer selling both homesites as well as homes. "You can only build on 20 percent of any homesite (minimum size is one acre). We leave the natural feeling. Our CC&Rs [covenants, conditions and restrictions] deal with design and landscaping guidelines to ensure that each home blends into the existing environment. What we’re selling is a lifestyle."

Haygood said along with buyers from Nevada and California, there are several families who are relocating to the mountains from places as far away as Texas and Illinois. "They tend to gravitate towards the greenery. They like the trees," he said. And to keep up with the area’s popularity, service businesses continue to proliferate along the Mt. Rose corridor at a rapid pace.

In 1992, the Mt. Rose Highway was a two-lane road bisecting the Sierra, offering a more direct route to Lake Tahoe and used mainly by skiers and a handful of few hearty souls living "way" out of town. "There was no Galena High School, no Ted Hunsberger Elementary School, no shopping centers, and certainly no Montreux or ArrowCreek," Haygood said, referring to two recently-developed upscale housing areas south of town. Now, the freeway is complete to Mt. Rose Highway, ensuring that the trip to the airport or into town is no more than a 15-minute drive. According to Haygood, all of the arguments people had for living so far away from the hub of activity have been met and visibly overcome. The University of Nevada is doing its part to help develop the area, with its Redfield Campus located at the eastern end of the highway where it meets Highway 395. With groundbreaking in December, the facility should be ready for students next year. St. James’s Village is located only minutes from the South Meadows Business Park and the corporate headquarters for International Game Technology, as well as several dot-com companies.

"As people come here, they have all the tertiary services that they are looking for, but still they have the trees, the open spaces, the mountain views and a short drive to the airport or downtown Reno," said Haygood.

Of the 522 available lots, 188 are developed — of the 188, 113 are sold. Haygood explained that a developed lot is one with a complete infrastructure — roads completed to the site, power, cable, phone and water. "Also, we run dry natural gas lines and dry sewer lines," he said. "Eventually we’ll have to hook up to those amenities." Natural gas and sewer lines are slowly snaking their way to St. James’s Village, and the planners there have made it their highest priority to be ready when these amenities reach them — at no cost to the homeowners. Since they can sell only 250 homesites, or build 150 homes prior to connecting to sewer and natural gas, sooner is better than later.

While pricing for an acre of ground starts at $99,900 there are parcels selling at close to $1 million. Dividing the community into a series of five neighborhoods enables a homeowner to build a home that fits into the landscape, whether the home is at the treeline, in the high chaparral or the high desert. There are homes with stucco exteriors, some with cedar siding and some exhibiting the typical Tahoe structure with wood and rock trims.

The Woods is the first of these neighborhoods, established in 1995 and comprised of 60 custom homesites. This was quickly followed by Bennington, the area with the largest of the sites featuring views of Mount Rose, Washoe Valley, the Virginia Range and the city lights. In Edgewood, the landscape transforms from alpine forest to a forest of sagebrush, and the homes here reflect Southwest and Mediterranean styling. Ridgecrest blends the forest with open space and Timberlake, abutting Joy Lake, offers a limited number of one-acre parcels set more deeply into the forest.

By highlighting the natural environment and offering miles of hiking, biking and equestrian trails, St. James’s Village can meet the needs of city dwellers looking for lots with views of water, mountains, trees or all of these elements in any combination.