BackCountry now open for building
'Last, great place in Highlands Ranch' will fit 1,300 homes
John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News
Published November 8, 2007 at midnight
Chetter Latcham has been riding his mountain bike and hiking on the wooded, gently rolling hills at BackCountry for the past decade.
As president of Shea Homes, developer of Highlands Ranch, Latcham at long last is starting to sell homes in the fledgling community. The project is notable for its location and for the fact that it's the final, major undeveloped property at Highlands Ranch.
"BackCountry is the last, great place in Highlands Ranch," Latcham said.
The area boasts miles of trails, spectacular scenery and abuts the 8,200-acre BackCountry Wilderness Area in Douglas County.
The future 1,100-acre BackCountry development stretches 1.7 miles east to west, and 1.3 miles north to south from Broadway and Wildcat Reserve Parkway.
The gated community can accommodate 1,300 homes. It will be developed over the next eight to 10 years.
That would put the value in today's dollars at about $660 million, Latcham estimated, although others think that may be conservative.
The first three homeowners moved into BackCountry about two weeks ago. Single-family homes built by Shea are priced from about $500,000, while Latcham expects that custom homes by other builders could eventually be priced in the $3 million to $5 million range.
Denver architect Peter Dominick is designing a "private lodge" called the Sundial House. It will include a pool and exercise room for BackCountry residents on one of the highest points on the property.
So far, about 500 people a week, mostly from Highlands Ranch, have been touring BackCountry.
"This has been a long, difficult year, and this is one of the few bright spots in a mostly gloomy market," Latcham said.
Dave Laffoon, publisher of Home Builders Research, lives on the east side of Highlands Ranch and has driven around BackCountry.
"Clearly, an awful lot of planning has gone into this and it is a very premier community," Laffoon said. "Unfortunately, the timing to buy there might be tough for some people right now."
As at all upscale housing developments, the biggest obstacle could be selling your existing house, he said. Also, people are becoming more cautious about making big purchases such as houses, he said.
Initially, BackCountry was envisioned as a golf course community.
One reason Latcham dropped the golf course idea was because of the amount of water used by courses.
"And we did a lot of market research on people living along golf courses and found that 80 percent of the people who lived there wanted the open space and views and only 20 percent were golfers," he said. "So, we said let's give them the view and save a lot of water."
There is plenty of water available for all of Highlands Ranch, including BackCountry, Latcham said.
"We have excess water, but we have no interest in selling it," he said.
The private open space at BackCountry equates to the size of about 560 football fields.
While each lot at BackCountry is deeper and wider than a typical Highlands Ranch home site - some are more than an acre - almost all of the lots are connected to open space on at least one side.
There are concrete trails "if you want to Rollerblade or push a stroller," as well as softer surface trails for running, and single-track trails through the wilderness and meadows for hiking.
rebchookj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5207
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