Gilded Gates
November 1, 2005
The luxury communities of today, such as Monterra and adjacent Tehama (Clint
Eastwood’s new development), make Llewellyn Park seem decidedly middle class. In
Beverly Park, near Beverly Hills, homes range from $7 million to $23.5 million,
and can be as large as 40,000 square feet. Beverly Park offers 24-hour security,
practice golf holes and nature trails. Hollywood stars and movie moguls are
hiding behind every hedge: Denzel Washington, Sylvester Stallone and Viacom CEO
Sumner Redstone all reside there. At Conyers Farm in Greenwich, Conn. (where Ron
Howard keeps a house), homes are between 10,000 and 20,000 square feet and range
in price from $4 million to $15 million. The Sanctuary in Boca Raton, Fla., is
boat-patrolled 24 hours a day and features a 20-slip marina. Luxury gated
communities now include amenities such as fitness centers, parks, riding trails,
stables, polo facilities and thousands of acres of untouched land in some of the
world’s most beautiful regions.
Scene from Monterra, a gated, environmentally conscious development near Monterey, Calif. A home built by South Valley Developers in Monterra’s Paseo Vista neighborhood.
; function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
(Click image to enlarge.) Gates can serve to keep both the general public and the paparazzi from hounding the famous, but some find it objectionable that such beautiful, open space is available only to the residents. But the restriction of outsiders, Mills says, is both part of the appeal and part of what will preserve the land. “It’s such a beautiful area. You’d have a lot of people driving through the area to enjoy the scenery [without gates],” he says.“With the gates, the only traffic you have has a purpose in being there, not just sightseers.”
A number of gated communities are master-planned: They incorporate residential and commercial uses and include leisure and recreation activities, all within the `gated perimeters. They are often built in edge cities—the outskirts of suburbs, where the last tracts of untapped land are available—and adopt the look and feel of a small town or miniature municipality. Del Webb is one of the major master-planned community developers; its Sun City complexes comprise entire towns for senior citizens in Arizona, Texas and South Carolina.
advertisement
