Less than 10 miles from Banks on Green Mountain Ranch, rural and urban collide.
The neighborhood, located up a winding gravel road, officially opened Sunday. Right now the area is mostly desolate but for a few homes and horse stables. By next year, Garrette Custom Homes will have built enough estates to call Green Mountain a community.
Steve Mead and his brother own Green Mountain Ranch -- a 250-acre property that has been in their family since 1955. Home sites range from about 1 to 3.5 acres and cost between $399,000 and $469,000. The neighborhood features eight miles of trails, a community recreation center and a fire pit.
"People kind of expect that it is something that some corporate entity is throwing together," he said. "I don't think you'll find anything like it in the Portland area."
Up a bumpy gravel road yet to be paved, Mead stopped his Dodge 4X4 in front of a rectangular clearing. He looked past the clearing, out over a green thicket of fir trees whose pointed tips gave way to a splintered view of the landscape below.
"This one's got a nice view," he said, nodding under his cowboy hat at the empty space designated as one of 23 housing sites.
Matt Lewis, manager of Garrette Custom Homes, said the area has attracted a diverse buyer profile: professionals, retirees, families with children. Because of its proximity to Hillsboro and the Silicon Forest, employees from Intel, Nike and other technology companies have expressed particular interest.
"Green Mountain Ranch is a good example of how you can have rural development but not rape and pillage the hillside," he said. "Those quarter-acre city lots don't really exist anymore, so if you want more elbow room you truly do have to go out in the country."
Lewis said the area is also unique because of its history.
Green Mountain Ranch was solely a timber ranch and alfalfa farm until Mead's family multiplied and decided more homes were in order.
Along the way, they ran into some obstacles.
When the family first started looking into building more homes, the area had been zoned as Exclusive Forest and Conservation land, which meant to protect Oregon's natural resources and allowed them only one house per 160 acres. Then in 2004, state voters adopted Measure 37, which temporarily allowed approved landowners to develop protected property under the same regulations as when they bought it.
For the Meads, the waiver meant they could build dozens of houses on their land. To develop for just two or three more homes, the family would have to build roads, water systems and power lines. They would also have to pay Washington County, engineers and land surveyors.
With that total already looming at hundreds of thousands, Mead decided to go big and attempt to make a profit. And as a real estate agent specializing in country homes, he was equipped with some rural housing knowhow.
"I live here and I want it to be a legacy that I'm proud of," he said.
The long vesting process now out of the way, Mead and Garrette Custom Homes started selling plots last year. The first family moved into their home in August.
Built around 1980, Mead's house is now the second oldest on the ranch, after his parents'. The modern homes almost don't match the landscape, sticking out like pockets of the present amid tall trees as old as pioneers.
But Mead doesn't care. For him, the best part of developing the land is having a community of people to share it with -- his children, grandchildren and new neighbors who love Green Mountain just as much as he does.
Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/forest-grove/index.ssf/2013/03/green_mountain_ranch_near_bank.html
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