Exploring Avalon
A good friend had been offering me the 50 cent tour of the proposed gated wilderness community development above Portuguese Cove for some time now and Sunday past I took him up on it.
What’s a gated wilderness community you ask? Well, presumably its a subdivision with walking trails and water access that locks out the riff-raff so you have the wilderness to yourself. At a price of course, and as some have pointed out, its perhaps not even entirely within the law to gate off a wilderness stretch to hikers & hunters. I’m not sure this area has attracted people to hike, picnic or hunt in the past but here it is and its branded Avalon Park.
Avalon Park ‘Private Wilderness Reserve’ is an ambitious subdivision concept just outside Halifax. Coast Magazine ran a story about this place last fall but I remained unaware of it until my good friend peaked my interest with his speculations on how anyone could put so much investment into a mosquito bog. So I figured I’d bite, and see if there’s a building lot I would be ready to move on to. What better time than the bleakness of January, my theory being if you’re thinking of buying a property, might as well look at it during its worst stretch of the year, not the best.
Subdivision really seems inadequate to describe the work that has gone into this residential development. Walking paths, gazebos, footbridges, granite boulder placements beefing up entrances to lots and articulating waterways, small docks on lakes and ponds for canoeing or kayaking are all impressive.
We found the road chained for the winter and only took a short walk up Deerfield Avenue to check out a few 4 acre, $280k building lots. Wait, are there avenues in the wilderness? Apparently so, and commanding views, for sure, even at this distance of several kilometers from the coast I can see having a second story deck and watching the ship traffic enter the Halifax Harbour.
I imagined what it would be like to watch a thunderstorm move through Halifax from here. Not many good sized trees in this area, strike that, there are no trees of any real size, at this end of the ‘park’, so not really a ‘cozy’ spot. I thought I wouldn’t mind building here if i happened to win the lottery, though my friendly guide suggested there are plenty of nice properties in the area for much less than the asking price here. Not with the gated entrance proposed for this, neighborhood of course.
I’ll look forward to returning in better weather and following the map the full stretch back into the bogs, er, I mean wilderness to see if there are lots with more tree cover. We’ll be watching to see how Halifax takes to the concept of a gated wilderness community development.
Evan Skuthorpe on January 20th, 2010
Some great shots here, a pleasure to view.