Homestead Preserve

Homestead Preserve: Hot Springs, Virginia

Homestead Preserve Receives 2008 Scenic Virginia Award

Hot Springs, Virginia - 11/4/2008

Last month Homestead Preserve received the 2008 Scenic Virginia Award for Scenic Viewshed Preservation. The award honors the Bath County, Virginia conservation community for its efforts to maintain scenic viewsheds, preserve open space and forestland, and protect natural landscapes during the course of development.

When Homestead Preserve developer Celebration Associates purchased the Virginia Hot Springs Company in 2002, they sold 9,250 acres of their original 11,500-acre purchase on and around Warm Springs Mountain and the Cascades Gorge to The Nature Conservancy. In October 2004, they placed an additional 935 acres into permanent conservation easements with the Virginia Outdoors Foundation to ensure the protection of the area’s mountain ridges and pastoral landscape for future generations.

One of the major distinguishing factors of Homestead Preserve’s environmental commitment, which caught the attention of the Scenic Virginia Awards committee, is the intensive field work that went into creating Homestead Preserve’s master plan. In 2002, Celebration Associates established an aerial map of the property to allow the planning team to study topography, forest cover, streams, and watersheds. Then, on the ground, planners evaluated the landscape to determine which areas would be suitable for development and which should be preserved.

“Our planning team also studied the views from each home site as well as the views into the development from local roads and highways to make sure home sites would blend into the natural surroundings and not be intrusive on the viewshed,” explains Homestead Preserve’s Co-General Manager Don Killoren. “We are honored to have these conservation efforts recognized by Scenic Virginia.”

Scenic Virginia, Inc. is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, protecting, and enhancing the scenic beauty of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The organization’s primary purpose is to encourage and support public and private actions that enrich the Commonwealth’s scenic beauty, particularly along Virginia’s highways and byways.

Homestead Preserve developers and Celebration Associates partners Charles Adams and Don Killoren were instrumental in the design and development of Celebration, Florida, near Orlando, which was hailed as the “Most Advanced Community in the Country from 1996-1998” by The Guinness Book of World Records. Celebration Associates has for the past ten years been a partner in developing the community of Baxter Village in South Carolina, and is also a partner leading the real estate development projects at Bundoran Farm in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Mt. Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire. Crosland, Inc. of Charlotte, NC is a financial partner in Homestead Preserve, Bundoran Farm and Mount Washington Resort. Crosland’s President and CEO Todd Mansfield was also directly involved in the development and success of Celebration, Florida. Crosland, Inc. is one of the Southeast’s leading and most diversified real estate companies.