Posted on 07/09/2007 9:21:53 PM PDT by Lorianne
BEE CAVE, Tex.NEARLY two decades ago, Gene and Linda Lowenthal, who were living in Austin, decided that they would eventually want to move to the wide-open countryside. They bought 58 acres in this small town in the Texas Hill Country, about 45 minutes west of Austin, built a small house and moved here in the mid-’90s, finally free of noise and sprawl.
That freedom lasted about nine years. Then, bulldozers started appearing on hillsides once covered with live oak and mesquite trees. Houses and traffic lights popped up on once-forlorn roads leading to their home. Plans for a water line were drawn.
The Lowenthals had to choose: stay, or travel farther out into the Hill Country. “We just wanted a small house where we could enjoy the land and be left alone,” Mrs. Lowenthal said. “People could look at us and say, ‘Your land is worth 10 times more than what you paid.’ But what we wanted is going to be gone.”
The couple, who are in their 60s — she is a hospice nurse, he an investment banker — decided that they did not want to move again. They liked their land and their house, if not the encroaching edges of suburbia. So they decided to stay — and to try to see that new subdivisions are built in the way they think is right. They teamed up with neighbors and are battling to keep open land and preserve water quality.
The Hill Country, an area that extends about 150 miles west of Austin, is quickly becoming suburban. With its rolling hills, lakes and rivers, it is attracting Texans eager to escape city life, and out-of-state buyers who can buy more acreage for less, real estate agents say, than they might pay in other states.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Info..........
Its possible to develop rural areas in such a way that the natural beauty and open spaces are preserved.
Sadly $$$ usually gets in the way. Instead of modern looking convenience stores model them after general stores. It can be modern while appearing rustic and quaint. And for Gods sakes break up the sprawl with some open land boundrys and public spaces. Public spaces is a problem in TX. I was taken unaware when I moved here and found that virtually all of the state is privately owned.
Best thing you can do in TX to stop encroachment is buy a bunch of land and refuse to sell
Most land is private. Public lands might as well be a regulated as they are.
I presents challenges
They bought a teeny little place in the hill country and thought it would be private? 58 acres in west Texas is a postage stamp. You want peace and quiet you need about 12,000 acres. Otherwise, just get a condo, a stereo and some headphones.
45 minutes by driving time, maybe (on a Sunday morning, say, around 0300; anyone who’s driven in Austin knows what I mean) - Bee Cave is no more than 15 miles from downtown:
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/BB/hnb17.html
Did they really think they were soooooo far out in the sticks 20 years ago?
Especially when you see what happend along the 35 corridor over the last 20 years
And 183 and 290 - development is solid to past Leander now; Manor (MANOR!) will probably be a 5A school the next time the UIL redistricts (I just looked at their school website - it’s already 4A).
Has anyone done a study to look at the demographics of those moving in? A hunch...most of those moving in are probably liberal northerners since Austin, predominately liberal, is their destination.
In Travis County, yes: remember the blue county/red county map of the 2004 election? The one little blue island in the middle of the state was Travis. South Austin (motto: “We’re all here because we’re not all there”) is particularly infested with Progs.
As far as Williamson County goes (Round Rock and Georgetown), quite the reverse - all the conservative types who move to the area go there. They’re all the folks who toil for Dell, Samsung, Westinghouse, etc.
...remember the blue county/red county map of the 2004 election?
Do I ever! Check out Jefferson (mine) and Orange county in that sea of red. Never been so sad for and about my neck of the woods as then.
Sounds like South Florida in the 1950’s. Look it now. Looks and sounds like the Bronx NY. Paradise lost for ever.
I know!
If you would have told me Coupland would no longer be in the middle of nowhere, I would have laughed at you. Hell look at Elgin’s growth as well.
Thank you. I thought I was going senile. I KNEW where Bee Caves was (our son was killed near there) and wondered if there was another Bee Caves town. When we sold our 61 acres at Hye(between Johnson City and Stonewall) and moved out in 1999 we sold it and a home for $250,000 and got a good deal. That same land now is valued at $10,000 per acre or more. We are always a day late and a dollar short. LOL
I have an office in Hutto and have seen it EXPLODE over the past 12 years. In 1995 I could walk across hwy 79 blindfolded at 5:00 pm, now, I would be lucky to sprint across. Growth is UNREAL.
Miami, where I lived from 1999-2002, WAS paradise to me in that the female situation there was better than it has ever been in my life, before or since.
Sad to see this happening to the Texas hill country. It is, FMM, the only part of Texas that is liveable in terms of climate, scenery and employment. I love the Lone Star State, but just can't stand the humidity and sprawl of Houston and DFW Metroplex, or the lack of employment in the desert.
That is an awful lot of land for an aging retired couple to tend. In this part of central Texas, it could easily be an entire hill.
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