Jackson Meadow

As I told you in my post from Monday, M and I stumbled across a neighborhood that definitely piqued our curiosity and quite frankly, creeped us out a little.

After we had left Brookside Bar, we decided to take a different way back home that we've taken before. While headed towards that direction, we realized we had passed the road we were to have turned on. M said he was going to turn around but I told him to just keep going and see where we headed and turn around further ahead. We passed a "No Outlet" sign but continued past as we figured we'd turn around up there. We approached a neighborhood that was more than unique and had an eerie feeling to it and we're greeted with the following signage.

The neighborhood we discovered is called Jackson Meadow.

Jackson Meadow has small streets that connect to the larger street that looks like a big track around the houses. We were just amazed at what we were seeing. Every house was white, except for one tall black tower at the entrance of the community, which stood as though a gunmen was in it watching over the activities of the neighborhood. We did see a couple of people outside, but not many considering the nice day. Each house had different architecture, some looking like a plain farmhouse to some that had a strange, modern look. It felt as though this was an abandoned movie set or some type of commune. Whatever the feeling was, it was uneasy because of the unknown and what the heck was going on here.

After our motorcycle ride, I did some research to find out about what we had stumbled upon. After reading about the neighborhood, it definitely became less scary than what we first experienced when seeing this place.

Jackson Meadow is an award-winning sustainable community. Jackson Meadow started slowly in 1998 and I believe now has 63 homes. The largest house is 3000 square feet and each home is designed in a certain way to avoid having unnecessary space while allows them to use fewer materials to build.

Here are some of the ordinances that each homeowner must adhere to:

• All siding must be cedar or approved equal
• All roofs must be of metal construction
• All garages must be unattached
• All fences must be picket
• No visible TV antennas or dishes greater than 24 inches

The reason behind the unattached garage is so that you can have some interaction with your neighbors when going to and from your car. In addition, each house front faces each other with a green walkway between the properties and has a porch to use as another way to interact with your neighbors.

The area itself consists of 300 acres of land, of which 50 acres is used for the streets and land that each home is on. The remaining 250 acres surrounding the community is protected and now preserved by a conservation easement. This allows the residents of the community to be surrounded by untouched nature.

The streets are paved, however the miles of trail systems are not, which are described as being more compatible with the natural surroundings. People are encouraged to walk whenever possible, reducing emissions, however when we drove by, we saw at least two corvettes and an SUV. The streets are somewhat concave in the middle with no gutters or sidewalks allowing for water to drain naturally like a river when it rains. The streets are more narrow than the average suburban street which uses 25% less pavement.

The community also has a different type of septic system than your average neighborhood. It's basically a communal septic system, rather than an individual one for each home. It's a natural process and eliminates 99% of the bacteria vs. 40-50% in "a standard septic system" allowing for cleaner water to the groundwater.

Here are some more facts about the design of the houses themselves:

• All houses are white, reducing absorptive heat
• All houses have energy efficient appliances
• All houses are positioned to maximize the total amount of natural sunlight
• All houses have windows that eliminate condensation and escaping heat in the winter or cool air in the summer (When we drove past all the houses, none of them had curtains or any type of window treatments. There were many large windows and we could see easily into a lot of the houses.)

After learning more of the community and what their common goal is, I appreciate what they are doing for themselves and the environment, however this does not come at a small cost. There are currently a couple of houses for sale in Jackson Meadow that has 2 BR, 2.5 Bath and 2100 square feet listed for $409,900 or a 3BR, 2 Bath and 2254 square feet for $699,000.

Check out Jackson Meadow's website if you'd like, otherwise I found a lot of my information here.