Homestead Preserve Sells Nearly $17 Million In First Public Real Estate Offering

Hot Springs, Virginia, March 1, 2005- On February 26, the Homestead Preserve, an exclusive 450-home planned community in Bath County, put 44 available home sites under contract within hours of their release, totaling just under $17 million in its first public real estate offering. Combined with the recent sale of 35 additional home sites to founder investors worth approximately $18 million, a total of 79 homes sites worth $35 million have been sold since early January. Saturday’s sale was a historic event in real estate sales for the county.

The Homestead Preserve is located on 2,300 acres nestled around the resort town of Hot Springs and the village of Warm Springs in Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains. Bordering the Warm Springs Mountain Preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy and adjoining the George Washington National Forest, the Homestead Preserve is poised to become a haven for vacation homeowners seeking proximity to nature in a community dedicated to land conservation. The sale of 9,250 acres to The Nature Conservancy and the donation of conservation easements on an additional 935 acres to The Virginia Outdoors Foundation help to insure that only 3% of the original 11,500-acre land holdings surrounding the historic Homestead Resort and Old Dairy will be disturbed for infrastructure, amenity, and home construction.

Homestead Preserve has now begun Phase I of the development project, which includes a total of 139 home sites. Infrastructure work including roads and utilities should begin in early April. The 79 home sites sold to date range in size from ˝ to 10 acres, and have either been sold or are under contract at an average lot price of more than $440,000, with the highest lot sale at $1 million.

Homestead Preserve managing director Charles Adams and partner 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 The Guinness Book of World Records. Todd Mansfield, currently CEO of Crosland, Inc. a financial partner in Homestead Preserve, 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. For more information, call Deborah Huso at (540) 839-5147, or e-mail writewell@tds.net.