Qroe Preservation Development

Currier prefab at Bundoran Farm/ photo by Leigh Donohue, C'ville


Currier Farmhouse front elevation

In an article from the online Charlottesville magazine C'ville, writer Will Goldsmith gives props to Qroe Farm Preservation Development, the company developing Bundoran Farm, for sticking to what they promised. The company had vowed to maintain the working farm on the property, tuck the homesites away so they are not visible from the road, and, most importantly, keep 80% of the 2,300 acres undeveloped and in conservation easements. These principles are key to a growing movement called New Ruralism that is starting to gain ground. Qroe has been involved in this type of development for more than a decade, with four preservation developments completed in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, each with more than 80% of its acreage preserved in open space. Bundoran Farm is the first outside of New England.

Qroe has a terrific vision for preserving rural land. The company is committed to bringing together three diverse groups often locked in combat -- conservationists, farmers, and homeowners -- in innovative development projects that satisfy everyone's objectives.

We live in Loudoun County, Virginia, a once-rural area that has morphed in a short decade into a poster child for development run amok. Located an hour outside of Washington, DC, Loudoun was long-renowned for pastoral beauty, historic towns, and gracious farms -- all but destroyed in the 1990s when a high-speed freeway opened to connect farm and city. Suddenly, developers were everywhere. A huge chute opened, littering subdivisions, malls, SUVs and minivans all over Loudoun, rendering it for years running the nation's fastest-growing county. Loudoun quickly transformed from rural to "exurban," a term that sounds as hideous as what it describes. Build it and build it some more, and they will come. And they did.

That is, until lately. With rising gas prices and the "economic downturn," Loudoun is no longer looking so fetching as a place to either make money or live. If a long-distance commute becomes truly unaffordable, this bedroom community is going to be a landfill for empty bedrooms.

It's too late for Loudoun County. But perhaps in our new reality-checked America, more companies will emerge with a long-term vision like Qroe Farm's -- to conserve the land and nurture an area's rural heritage rather than simply get in, get rich, and get out.

Leesburg in Loudoun County, VA / photo by Tim Dillon, USA Today

A Prefab Currier at Bundoran Farm

The Daily Progress/Andrew Shurtleff

A prefab Currier, which is a design from the Simple Farmhouse Portfolio, is the first house to be built at the Bundoran Farm preservation development near Charlottesville. In this article from the Daily Progress, Brian McNeill writes about the Bundoran project, the Currier design, the prefab process, the builder group, the development company, and much more. The Currier is the design that has become Russell's iconic house. It is based on a custom home built in Waterford, Virginia, that Russell designed in the mid-1990s. We continue to hear from people who saw the house in a magazine a decade ago and have never forgotten it.

The custom home in Waterford on which the Currier is based

We have added a new blog feature: a list of links to recent online articles that are piquing our interest. We scan online media regularly to monitor trends in the housing industry and ensure that we are taking the practice in the right direction for changing times.

The Chandler Farmhouse

At the Homestead Preserve in Warm Springs, Virginia, the Chandler is being built on a site with a drop-dead gorgeous view of the Blue Ridge mountains.

The side and back of the Chandler at the Homestead Preserve

Wouldn't this be a great spot to sit and watch the hawks ride the air currents as they fly south?

Reconfigured for the hillside setting, the Chandler now has a walk-out basement


Chandler front elevation as originally designed for flat land

The Homestead Preserve is a conservation development in a tiny hamlet close to the Homestead Resort in White Sulphur Springs, Virginia. The developers, Celebration Associates, acquired a tract of 11,500 acres of pristine land. Their first act was to transfer 9,250 of them to the Nature Conservancy for protection in perpetuity, and later, to donate conservation easements for an additional 935 acres to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

Homes are being built on just 325 acres of the Homestead Preserve. Residents enjoy privileges at the 200-year-old Homestead Resort, including golf, tennis, cultural and social events, and spas such as the Jefferson Pools in Warm Springs -- where a certain weary ex-President traveled in 1818 to take the waters in the Gentleman's Spa.

Like the tidewater cottage in Halfway, the new house at the Homestead Preserve was built from a factory-fabricated kit of parts crafted in Vermont by Connor Homes and delivered by truck to Warm Springs for assembly by a crew from Ilex Construction.