By Suzanne Sprague, KERA 90.1 reporter.
Dallas, TX – Suzanne Sprague, Reporter: It was 1977 when Gretchen Ferris and Sarah Rinehart learned of a 175-acre plot of prairie land up for sale north of Celina.
Gretchen Ferris, Co-Owner of Hawks Haven: We drove out here and we got out on the very top of that last hill and I saw the lake and the barn in the distance and it was so beautiful and green, it was sort of like love at first sight.
Sarah Rinehart, Co-Owner of Hawks Haven: And I saw this wonderful, just think, billowing grass, flowing grass that I hadn't seen since I moved down here from Wyoming and that's what sold me.
Sprague: The Dallas women had been friends since a book club meeting four years earlier. Together, they bought the property, known as Hawks Haven, and for the next 25 years used it as a weekend retreat or leased it out for cattle grazing. But the toll of maintaining the property and the gradual encroachment of suburbia finally led Ferris to decide two years ago that is was time to sell.
Ferris: Well, it broke my heart to think of putting up a for sale sign and having it look like another Frisco development or Plano development with great big roads going all the way through it and it was like, well, how can we do this?
Sprague: That's when Ferris and Rinehart called Lou Verner, an urban biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife.
Lou Verner, Texas Parks and Wildlife: The best way to put it is the grasslands and the prairie that used to be here are really the equivalent of the tropical rain forest.
Sprague: Verner and his partner had assisted in mapping out an ecologically-sound development for Flower Mound. And, he wanted to do something similar at Hawks Haven.
Verner: Saving that amount of space within a development is certainly feasible and can be done and it may not be a full range of plants and animals that used to be there, but it's going to be a significant portion.
Sprague: Verner advised the two women to burn part of the land damaged by cattle grazing. It came back as almost solid native prairie grass. And, he's guided them in building an ecologically-sound plan for the property.
[ambient sound of walking through a field, lots of wind noise]
Ferris: Right now we're headed west and you can see the lake between the trees and that's a 26-acre lake [stepping sounds] and it's great to canoe in, it's really quite fun because then you can see the different birds nesting in the tree?
Sprague: Gretchen Ferris believes it's crucial to leave two-thirds of Hawks Haven as open space that will be shared by the 24 families that build there. Their driveways will face the perimeter of the property. There will be no interior roads. And the homes will defy the so-called "big-hair houses" that often line the suburban landscape.
Ferris: What we're thinking is having a smaller home that is conducive to you living in it and energy efficient rather than some of these mega houses that all have these rooms and furniture and no one ever goes in them.
Sprague: So, Ferris and Rinehart are offering discounts on the hawks haven lots if buyers build what are called energy star homes, or houses that meet government efficiency standards. This kind of development stems from the sustainable living movement, which emphasizes energy conservation and durability.
Barbara Harwood, Sustainable Living Consultant: The response to sustainable building?is just burgeoning all over the Dallas area and the business is increasing rapidly and the interest seems to be multiplying almost exponentially.
Sprague: Until January, Barbara Harwood was a sustainable living developer in the Dallas area. Now, she and her colleague Don Aetkin travel the country as consultants in environmentally friendly design. While they mostly work in urban neighborhoods, Aetkin says it's just as important to build sustainable developments in rural communities to help offset the environmental damage caused by sprawl.
Don Aetkin, Sustainable Living Consultant: More and more, both in houses and communities, independence, being able to live sort of with the resources of the earth while on the earth gently is becoming a factor. There is great value in showing that a community can be done independent from the urban fabric that pays attention to taking care of itself.
Sprague: But such a lifestyle comes with a stiff price. The smallest lots at Hawks Haven start at $200,000. And living an hour from downtown Dallas may mean long, expensive commutes. Still, Gretchen Ferris and Sarah Rinehart believe their plan is affordable because there are property tax breaks for homeowners. And, Rinehart says their mission is less tangible than a pricetag.
Rinehart: Rinehart: Any place they've lived, we've lived, we've left better than we found it. And I think that's probably the ultimate goal here, is to leave this land better than we found it.
For KERA 90.1, I'm Suzanne Sprague.