A Return to the Woods
How Florida’s largest private landowner is rethinking life far from the big city
from Trust the Leaders Issue 14, Winter 2005
WaterColor in northwest Florida recaptures the defining characteristics of America’s small towns. © 2005 The St. Joe Company
For decades, Florida’s coast is where nearly everyone wanted to live. An estimated 80 percent of the Sunshine State’s 16 million residents now live within 30 miles of the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico.
But the clamor for crowded coastal cities and seaside communities now has some competition, as a growing number of Baby Boomers, entering retirement and pre-retirement, seek a special quality of life best found in rural settings. (Interestingly, when asked where they would live if money and circumstances were not an issue, more than half of those surveyed chose a 100-year-old farmhouse on 10 acres with a pond, according to a 2002 USA Today poll.)
After 50 years of steady migration from the country to cities, mostly for economic reasons, demographers began taking note in the 1990s of what has been dubbed the “rural rebound” — a growing number of people returning to rural communities for a simpler way of life.
Technology has helped pave the way for this trend. Rural doesn’t mean remote anymore, thanks to satellite TV and radio, DSL and cable, Amazon and eBay, FedEx and UPS. In his new book, The World is Flat, New York Times columnist Thomas L. Freidman notes that technology is making it possible for people to participate in the global economy on their own terms, whether they live in Bangalore, India, or Bonifay, Florida. Today, people who want a traditional urban job can live — or spend significant time — in the country, if they choose.
The St. Joe Company, Florida’s largest private landowner with more than 850,000 acres of land concentrated primarily in the sparsely populated northwest part of the state, is among the leaders in the emerging trend of a return to the rural life.
St. Joe is a recognized expert at “place making,” the art and science of creating true places where people are drawn to live, work and escape. Since its transformation from an industrial conglomerate to a real-estate operating company in 1997 with the arrival of Chairman and CEO Peter Rummell, the Jacksonville-based company has developed a number of acclaimed communities in north Florida, including WaterColor on the Gulf of Mexico and Southwood in Tallahassee, that adhere to the New Urbanism concept of creating towns and resorts designed to recapture the sense of community that was once the defining characteristic of life in America’s small towns.
Using these same proven principles, St. Joe is producing a new set of concepts it calls New Ruralism, which is intended to help people rediscover an intimate connection with the land. “We believe St. Joe is uniquely positioned to implement both New Ruralism and New Urbanism strategies on a large scale,” Rummell said. “Our New Ruralism products are for people seeking a simpler life from a simpler time and wanting to reconnect with the land with the need to make a living from it.”
From its vast storehouse of Florida land, St. Joe has created three new real-estate products — RiverCamps, WhiteFence Farms and Florida Ranches — aimed at those buyers who want to retreat to a rural setting without having to give up their connection to the larger world.
RiverCamps are planned settlements in rustic settings of low-density home sites surrounded by a large common area preserved for conservation. The company’s first, RiverCamps on Crooked Creek, is located near one of northwest Florida’s most beautiful and pristine bay systems. The site provides boating and fishing with water access to St. Andrew Bay and its creeks, the Intracoastal Waterway and the Gulf of Mexico. Recent sales of home sites averaged $342,900 and ranged from $174,500 for an interior site to $1 million for a bay front site.
St. Joe’s WhiteFence Farms will be developed in a number of locations in northwest Florida. Designed to feel “old farm and equestrian,” these communities include large home sites with areas for a variety of outdoor activities. Each farm site will include a main farmhouse along with sites for barns, guest houses and stables.
The Preble-Rish Ranch was built on former St. Joe land in northwest Florida and is designed to allow people to reconnect with the land. © 2005 The St. Joe Company
The first WhiteFence Farms, located near Tallahassee, began predevelopment planning earlier this year. Farm sites range in size from five to 20 acres and are priced from $20,000 to $75,000 an acre.
The Florida Ranches product also began predevelopment planning earlier this year. Expected to consist of 50- to 150-acre sites located within a 1,000- to 3,000-acre community, Florida Ranches are being designed primarily as second homes for outdoor enthusiasts.
St. Joe utilizes SGR’s Intellectual Property Practice to handle its large volume of trademark-related matters, and often calls upon the firm’s Real Estate Practice for representation in commercial real estate transactions.
Just as New Urbanism has changed the way we view community development, St. Joe and its New Ruralism concept just might change the way we view rural living.