A massive splash of prairie far north of Alliance Airport, where the traffic clamor fades and the sky dominates, tugs at the spirits of two city slickers.
They come here, traveling down gravel roads in a big white Suburban, eager to slough off urban weariness and let their eyes roll over a panorama they believe is as striking as any seashore.
“The landscape is so subtle, so beautiful,” says Peter Malin, a Dallas economist who with his partner bought the sprawling spread outside Denton almost two years ago. “The other night, my wife and I were sipping wine out here, just taking it all in, and we saw this magnificent comet trailing across the horizon.”
At times, it appears, Malin and his partner, real estate developer Ken Bruder, get so caught up in the beauty of their environs they forget that they are standing at the center of a 900-acre real estate project. But they say that’s the true beauty of their endeavor, which defies typical metropolitan real estate rules.
Instead of dicing the land and bringing in hundreds or thousands of houses, the men are aiming to preserve 80 percent of this prairie while framing it with artfully crafted houses and a rural replica of a turn-of-the-century Texas town square.
And they are working on plans to incorporate the area — along U.S. 380, 10 miles west of Denton — into a town to ensure control of development for years.
Dubbed Big Sky, the project is in its fledgling stages, with construction of some roads and houses to begin in the next three months. Like any developers who are trying something new, Malin and his team aren’t certain how the project will be received, but they have financial backers prepared to stay for the long haul.
Big Sky is already creating a buzz in museums, art houses and planning circles throughout the Metroplex.
The talk is of a rural community where people can buy an enchanting lot on which to build a house and have instant access to more than 500 acres of wilds carefully tended and carved with horse and hiking trails.
“This is a pretty gutsy thing for them to do,” Denton County planner Steve Rollins says. “This just isn’t the kind of thing you see in this state. I’d like to see this kind of development take place all over the rural parts of Texas.”
Real estate observers say Big Sky is a rarity, comparable to the thriving Sea Ranch and Seaside coastal developments in California and Florida, respectively, that aim to cleverly harness the natural environment.
Big Sky environs may not be as dramatic as the seas, but Malin and Bruder are banking on the tranquility and subtlety of a vast prairie to inspire home buyers.
“Merging human habitation with the prairie preserve is the trick,” says Ft. Worth native Max Levy, a Big Sky architect who recently lectured about the project at the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth. “The prairie is as beautiful in its own way as a seashore.
“The problem is, it is perhaps the most delicate landscape visually. One sour note out in a field contaminates literally miles of panorama. That’s why most Americans don’t even think about the prairie as a viable place of pleasure.”
For Levy, who has designed everything from Dallas Public Library spaces to an unusual house that artfully pours rain into a nearby stream, the opportunity to harness the prairie makes his heart race.
“The problem is, we just tend to take the prairie for granted,” he says. “We just hurtle through it at 70 mph, and if we would stop the car and get out and walk out into one of these fields, we would see how compellingly beautiful they can be.”
Sixteen months after Malin and Bruder purchased their land, Big Sky is moving closer to reality. Denton County officials have given their blessing to preliminary plats. Levy is expected to finish house drawings by this spring.
Still, don’t ask them for a marketing brochure. They don’t have one. And they don’t seem to care.
“The way we see it, people will either get it or they won’t,” says Bruder, shrugging his shoulders at the prairie.
If there was a promotional brochure, it might say something like: Buy 1 acre, get 600.
“That’s really what it is,” Bruder says. “You will buy a home but get all of this additional acreage, too.”
A homeowners association, supported by dues, will pay for upkeep of the wilderness.
It’s a distinctive chunk of earth. The northern corner is one of the highest points in Denton County at an altitude of 900 feet, with a far-flung view into Wise County where the Decatur courthouse spire can be seen. Families of hawks are often seen turning lazy circles in the sky overhead. Nearby are a miniature donkey farm and scattered silos. In some spots, the prairie blends seamlessly into the sky.
Malin and Bruder hope to sell 1.4-acre lots for homesteads, which will frame the prairie and be in distant clusters within grassy seas. The cost of lots will average $50,000, which Malin says is competitive with area developments anchored by amenities such as a lake or a golf course.
When the Dallas partners first purchased the Denton land in 1996, they considered building a 300-acre subdivision of ranch-style houses with huge porches, nestled amid miles of oak trees. But after several months of planning, their vision of Big Sky unfolded.
Like Seaside, Big Sky will require homestead buyers to build structures that use a specified architectural design. At Big Sky, they will have a choice of 30 designs accented with farm motifs and materials with a weathered look -such as corrugated metal, wood and stone.
The standards, devised to blend the houses with prairie and sky, will allow for a wide diversity of houses, Levy says. Tucked into preliminary blueprints are some houses that are divided into pavilions with silo roofs. Some have prairie courtyards separating their wings.
Levy studied under Sea Ranch architect Joseph Esherick, one of the most revered architects in the country. Esherick’s influence will be seen in the metal roofs and the gently sloping features.
“The very carefully formulated guidelines 1/8of Sea Ranch 3/8 are designed to avoid jarring anyone’s enjoyment of the view,” Levy says. “It’s what we’re doing with our guidelines, in very simple terms. In our case, we will have more easygoing roof slopes that relate to the landscape. We’re literally going to specify maximums on roof slopes.”
In later phases, plans call for an 80-acre town square to be built on the southern edge next to the highway. Malin wants town houses, bed-and-breakfast inns, restaurants, a general store, possibly a chapel or a museum.
Residents can hitch horses in a town square that unfolds onto the prairie, then trot into the wilds.
The surging home-building market may help breathe life into Big Sky. Last year, a record number of houses were sold in the Metroplex and many analysts are predicting the strong pace to continue through 1998.
Economist Harold Gross of Clarius Consultants hasn’t seen plans for Big Sky, but he says the market for such a project appears to be ripe.
