CONSERVATION SUBDIVISIONS

CONSERVATION SUBDIVISIONS
GOOD FOR THE LAND, GOOD FOR THE POCKETBOOK

By Steve Wright

Kathy Dennis loves walking, even in the depth of the harsh Great Lakes winter, from her house to her detached garage.

She loves her subdivision’s natural trails, its close-knit diverse community, its bird walks, its acres of preserved dunes, meadows, woods, pastures and ponds.

Dennis grew up a city girl in Milwaukee. Her husband Karl grew up on Chicago’s very urban South Side and the couple loved vertical city living in a Chicago condominium on Lake Michigan. The odds that the recently retired couple would leave the intensity of the city for a rural development 60 miles from the Windy City would seem long.

But the Dennises live in Tryon Farm, a master-planned Conservation Subdivision that has committed to preserving 120 of its 150 acres as pristine, ecologically diverse rural land. Conservation Subdivisions seek to preserve farmland and open space – instead of leveling, sectioning off, completely bisecting with roads and otherwise converting hills, wetlands, woods and other natural areas into a built-out conventional subdivision.

“It’s the little things; you really know your neighbors,” Kathy Dennis said of Tryon, located very near Lake Michigan in Michigan City, Indiana. “We have nearly 60 households and we know everyone’s name. So many people in condos or conventional subdivisions come home, shut the door and never go out except for work and shopping. Here, you meet your neighbors, you have social gatherings, you use the hiking trails together.”

The Dennis family first bought a little 600-square-foot cabin in Tryon as a weekend getaway. After a few years of falling in love with the conserved land and the fabulous architecture that blends contemporary design with structures that are in complete harmony with the natural surroundings, they purchased a 2,000-square-foot permanent home.

“My husband was a very urban person, thought he’d never live in the country. He came out here because of me and fell in love with it,’’ Kathy Dennis said. “We traveled internationally, we could have picked any spot we wanted to in the world, but we retired and settled here because this felt like home.”

TOMORROW: TRYON FARM

Wright frequently writes about smart growth and sustainable communities. He and his wife live in a restored historic home in the heart of Miami’s Little Havana. Contact him at: stevewright64@yahoo.com