I grew up with a couple members of the
Campbell family, so I enjoy watching what the family is up to these days. One of their big projects is
Village Gardens, a new neighborhood on their property near 56th and Pine Lake Road. I took a tour through the neighborhood the other day. I love the fact that it isn't a cookie cutter development.
The homes in Village Gardens stand in stark contrast to the mundane rows of carbon copy homes in nearby developments. The styles aren't for everyone, but that's partially the point. Homes are allowed to be bolder, and thus more memorable. Some of the lots are hardly larger than the buildings that occupy them. That's astonishingly small by my standards, but for those who don't want to have to worry about a yard but who still want a house in a nice neighborhood, I suppose I can see the allure.
The weirdest part of driving through Village Gardens was seeing how much it had changed since I was last there. Some umpteen years ago I fished in the pond and spent the night in a pup tent in what is now a housing development. I guess that officially makes me old. I can already see myself telling Robbie, "Back in
my day this was all just a bunch of trees!" He'll roll his eyes and mumble something about me being senile.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how the neighborhood matures. I don't plan to move any time soon (or necessarily at all), but if I did, I could see myself digging some of those houses.