Latest condos offer views of working farms

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The folks living on the edge of towns such as Brainard, Garland and Cortland might not know it, but they’re right in step with the latest development trend.

“Catering to Americans desire to live ‘green,’ developers around the country are creating communities on or adjoining farms, pitching views of sorghum fields, grazing livestock and local — very local — food, such as eggs residents collect from the property’s henhouse,” The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

Prices start at $329,000 for a condo at Prairie Crossing in Grayslake, Ill., which describes itself as a nationally recognized conservation community. The development has entered a second phase after selling 359 single-family homes.

Prices in developments overlooking working farms vary from around $200,000 to more than $1 million, the newspaper reports.

Hmmm.

For that kind of money a buyer could get a put up a fancy house on a good-sized lot at the edge of any number of small towns in Nebraska — and still have more than enough money for the occasional trip to the Caribbean.

One of the appeals of the farm-site developments is that they offer views that stretch into the distance — rather the backside of a mansion a few yards away.

Incorporating a working farm into a development is way of managing open space.

Ed McMahon of the Urban Land Institute pointed out to the newspaper that some people chose to live in golf communities simply because they could be assured of a protected view.

That’s true even in midwestern cities such as Lincoln, which has its share of golf communities with high-priced homes looking out over greens and fairways.

In those developments, residents have to adjust to the hazard of errant golf balls.

In farmland housing developments, there are other adjustments — at least for residents accustomed to urban life.

“Residents must be willing to accept the rumble of tractors, natural grasses instead of a manicured front lawn and land management activities such as an annual ‘prairie burn,’” the newspaper pointed out.

Plenty of Nebraskans made that trade-off years ago.

Tonight, thousands of them will take a moment, maybe on sitting in the shade of a rustling cottonwood at the edge of a small town, to take in a view that goes on for miles, with the enormous Nebraska sky offering the splendor of a towering sunset in subtly changing shades of red, gold and violet.

Knowing that an ordinary, unassuming Nebraska lifestyle can be packaged and marketed at a sizable mark-up is gratifying, but it shouldn’t be all that surprising.