Developer Taps Rural Allure
 

Tricia Lynn Silva, San Antonio Business Journal
Week of May 13, 2002

Local developer Thomas E. Dreiss has staked out the far Northwest Side for his latest upscale, estate-lot residential community.

The landscaping work is just now complete on Shadow Canyon, a new 450-acre community that will be located off of Texas Highway 16 (Bandera Road), in Helotes.

Dreiss plans to develop a total of 205 lots in Shadow Canyon; the lots will range in size from one acre to three acres. The price range for the lots is $45,000 to $75,000, says Dreiss, adding that many of them abut the 8,000-acre Government Canyon State Park.

The local developer says he is confident that Shadow Canyon will do well.

Dreiss has already finished work on 63 of the community's planned lots. Forty-five of those lots comprise Phase One of the community, he explains. A total of 15 lots have been sold in Phase One -- and homes are already being built on three of those lots.

Dreiss is getting Shadow Canyon under way just as work has been completed on the final phase of his Los Reyes Canyons project. Carved out of 400-acres adjacent to Shadow Canyon, Los Reyes has a total of 225 estate lots. Dreiss started the project in 1997, and today only 40 lots are still up for grabs.
 

With Shadow Canyon, Dreiss is continuing a deliberate development process that he has had in play since late 1995 -- when he started Sendero Ranch in North Central San Antonio.

It is a process that he describes as responsible development. In simplest terms, it means that Dreiss keeps as much of the natural environment in tact as is possible.

It is a course of action that requires Dreiss to be intimately involved in his housing developments. When Dreiss cleared out the land for the roads in Phase One of Shadow Canyon, for example, he had the land cleared by hand.

"I had a chain-saw crew of 17 guys working for four weeks," says Dreiss, adding that by using a bulldozer, the same job would have likely taken only two days. And Dreiss helped cleared the land himself.

"I proudly own six chain saws," he says.

Another important step in the process for Dreiss: selling the lots to individuals instead of selling to builders. On an aesthetic level, this ensures that each home in a development like Shadow Canyon will be a true custom home.

But the process also allows Dreiss to continue to oversee how the homes will be built in relation to the natural habitat -- and in relation to the residential community. Deed restrictions on Shadow Canyon, for example, will require that even the location of a home on a lot be approved -- so as to preserve as much of the natural scenery as possible. Buffer zones of native habitat have also been set up between adjacent lots.

As has been the case in all of Dreiss' developments, all home plans in Shadow Canyon also must be submitted to an architectural board for review -- to ensure that each home fits into the overall plan of the community. For example, all of the homes in Sendero Ranch had to include a metal roof and either a stone or stucco exterior. The goal, Dreiss says, was to create an updated version of the German Hill Country look that had been so prevalent in the area in the past.

By working to incorporate an overall theme in the individual homes of Sendero Ranch, Dreiss was indeed ahead of the curve, say real estate professionals like M.B. Hyden. Hyden is the owner of The Hyden Group, which has designed many of the homes that have gone into communities like Sendero Ranch.

The architectural review process, however should not allow existing residents to discourage new homeowners, Dreiss continues. For this reason -- and in order to strike a balance between what residents want and what is allowed -- he sits in on every architectural review.

"My communities," he says, "are a very personal process."
 

It is this kind of attention to detail that has earned Dreiss praise from local real estate officials.

"Of all the people that do ranchette-lot development, he's one of the best in town," says Brett Baillio, a partner in the real estate firm First American Commercial Property Group. "He has great experience; he does a good job."

Baillio also agrees that Helotes is an appropriate spot for Dreiss' new community. He points to local builders like Connell Barron Homes and Mann Custom Homes Ltd., which have also started to stake their claims to higher-end housing in this area.

Shadow Canyon also has a head start, Baillio continues -- courtesy of Los Reyes.

Five years ago when Dreiss started Los Reyes, the community was a little further out than people wanted to go. Since then, this area has picked up. Even Dreiss says that part of the reason for starting Shadow Canyon was to serve the pent-up demand he encountered with Los Reyes.

"People want to live in the Hill Country, and they're willing to pay that price," Baillio says. "People want to get out of the hub-bub and traffic of the city, and get a little bit of country."

The country that Dreiss is offering with Shadow Canyon, however, does come with modern conveniences. Water and utilities are courtesy of San Antonio; the community is also located within the Northside Independent School District.

"The goal is take a rural area," Dreiss explains, "and put in city amenities."
 

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