Looking pretty much like the blueprint pictured it, builders have nearly finished the life-sized version, and close to 100,000 human variables have plugged themselves in, condensing like so many dew drops into homes on streets with names like Hughes Lane, Hughes Way, Hughes Court, Hughes Place and Hughes Street.
Technically, Highlands Ranch is still a 22,000-acre mixed use development in unincorporated Douglas County known by the name its creator, the Mission Viejo Company, branded it with back in 1981.
In the ’80s, many of the metro area’s established citizens scoffed at the California-style development sprouting up 12 miles south of Denver.
Phil and Kaye Scott made local history, becoming the Adam and Eve of what was still mostly a large, century-old cattle ranch. Those trusting pioneers settled here years before C-470 was paved, a local fire station or grocery store built, much less a bank, dental office, fast food restaurant or church. Pronghorns outnumbered people in those days. Now 96,713 of us reside between Santa Fe and Quebec, C-470 and Daniel’s Park.
Many outsiders still dismiss Highlands Ranch as a soulless non-community lacking charm and character. They call it cookie cutter. Conservative. Caucasian. Conformist. A covenant-controlled colony of Christian clones.
The hallmark wide streets, storm runoff zones, greenbelts and neatly defined subdivision boundaries reveal the work of master planners whose “vision for a community where people could raise their families, enjoy the beautiful weather and outdoor scenery,” as Metro District manager Terry Nolan put it, has become the chosen reality for nearly one out of 50 Coloradans.
That’s a surge of more than 25,000 people in the last decade. Highlands Ranch is one of the nation’s most populous unincorporated areas.
I’ve lived here half a decade, and can attest from my work as a U.S. Census Bureau enumerator that Highlands Ranch contains more surprises behind its 36,000-plus front doors than a whole warehouse full of Cracker Jack boxes.
We are more than a test market for chain stores. More than our matching floor plans, furniture, hair styles and SUVs. Maybe we do tend to parent our kids as though handed a syllabus upon joining this sprawling suburban sorority/fraternity. I guess some of us believe it takes a master-planned community to raise a child.
Collectively we’re not fans of crime, graffiti or visible power lines. We like pets, trees, sports, good schools, convenience and quality control. We enjoy a sense of security, wellness, belonging and a gorgeous view of the Front Range stretching from Roxborough to Fort Collins.
Yes this is a town made up mostly of families — much of them nuclear, but a growing number of them empty nesters, single-parent or Brady Bunch-like households — each with their own histories and talents.
I invite you to visit one of our 22 parks or 60 miles of trails and strike up a conversation with a local, see if you don’t pull them out of that pigeonhole in spite of yourself.
Which is not say we suffer no jerks and outlaws. We count a dozen registered sex offenders amongst our neighbors, and sheriff’s deputies deal with more domestic violence, fraud and theft cases than we’d like to admit.
Of course the recession has sent dark clouds over our many rooftops too. According to RealtyTrac, Highlands Ranch lists about 400 foreclosures.
Shea Homes, the current owner of Highlands Ranch, is building a final slate of upscale condos, townhomes, tech-friendly houses, and a luxury and custom gated subdivision in the remaining land zoned for residential construction.
Three decades of exponential growth give Shea solid reason to believe that if they build more, more will come. After all, no adult over the age of 30 was born here, and 80 different languages are reportedly spoken in our schools.
So what do current “Ranchers” say about this mixed-use development zone (31 percent residential, 61 percent open space, 8 percent commercial)?
Public school teacher Terri Thomas, in her 16th year at the oldest elementary school, Northridge, observed, “It’s family oriented and becoming more diverse each year.” Joe Zemla, owner of Bernie’s Hot Dog Co., said, “The strong community and dense population is great, our business is thriving and growing.” To 14-year-old Zach Grado, “Sometimes it feels like we live in a fishbowl. Everybody knows everybody.”
New Jersey transplant Jennifer Solimene said, “Residents here don’t live to work, they work to live.”
Residents of Highlands Ranch have so far been satisfied with Douglas County Sheriffs and Littleton Fire protection, and the Highlands Ranch Metro District to oversee its open space, parks, water supply, snow removal, roads and common grounds keeping.
A three-member Board of County Commissioners calls the major shots, with input from the Metro District’s elected board, and the Highlands Ranch Community Association’s 117 delegates, five directors and one manager. Unlike incorporated neighbors Castle Pines North and Lone Tree, we have no mayor, no town council and no demand to build a city hall and fill it with red tape.
For $508 per year, homeowners fund the HRCA’s $20 million budget to pay the 600 employees who operate four well-equipped recreation centers, offering scores of youth and adult sports and activities, and to enforce the covenants that protect property values.
Gary Debus, HRCA manager, said, “We offer almost twice as much value for about half the price other community associations charge.” HRCA organizes more than 100 events a year, including a popular free concert series and an impressive July 4th parade and fireworks show.
My main gripe, aside from overzealous traffic cops, is the sporadic hurricane-force winds that flipped and shattered my glass patio table, continually blow out my gas fireplace pilot light and seem to whip up every Tuesday morning as I take out the trash.
But as the teenage boy said, living in Highlands Ranch can feel like life in a snow globe, a man-made idyll where we intuitively play our roles in an elaborately staged story of 21st century suburbia.
Sunsets on rainy days often project full vibrant rainbows to the east, painting the upper limit of our bubble’s skyward boundary. Days like that you can almost hear Dorothy Gale’s voice floating over from Kansas, singing her envy of the happy little bluebirds.
Clear summer nights, when the crickets start in and a lazy coal train rolls down the Santa Fe tracks, I watch bats swoop to eat their moths fluttering in the lights above a newly resurfaced tennis court.
My ladies league, having just wrapped up our matches, chats with visiting opponents over a bottle of pinot and a Food Network recipe. We witness the sun set behind a snow-capped Mount Evans, puffy clouds glowing in shades of rainbow sherbet above, and discuss news of Egypt and a British royal wedding.
