Building on The Preserve

Building on The Preserve

Building a home on The Preserve is an exciting process. 

Developing lasting relationships with the families who select The Preserve as their home is important to achieve the Conservancy’s conservation goals. From the start, the Conservancy engages landowners to inspire and collaborate on managing their land to protect the rugged beauty and ecological vitality of The Preserve.  

The Preserve’s Design Guidelines are intended to maintain the protected values of The Preserve, always keeping homes subordinate to the land and enhancing the experience of living in a nature reserve. Homes on The Preserve are responsive to landforms, landscape zones, and honor regional building traditions. Designers are encouraged to focus on views and privacy, and to blur the lines between indoor and outdoor spaces.

The Design Review Board, a panel of expert architects and Preserve and Conservancy representatives, offer guidance and suggestions to improve the architectural and natural experience of homes, and ensure that all environmental and scenic values are maintained.

The individual residential lots within the Santa Lucia Preserve consist of two use-zones, known as Homelands and Openlands. The Homelands are smaller, less restricted envelopes within a property that are available for residential development. Uses within the remaining area of the property, the Openlands, are restricted by a conservation easement held by the Santa Lucia Conservancy.  Read more about our unique design here.

A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a landowner and a qualified holder, such as a land trust, whereby certain rights are removed from the property, such as the right to develop, in order to protect certain conservation values, such as wildlife habitat. The Santa Lucia Conservancy holds permanent conservation easements on approximately 7,650 acres within the Preserve (known as the “Openlands”) for the purposes of protecting ecological, scenic, and scientific values for the public benefit. Read more about our protected values here.

Photo: Matthew Millman

The Preserve Design

Every detail of the Preserve design was thoughtfully considered to cultivate a place where human and wild communities can thrive. Read more.