As much as I often rail against the uber-liberal news media and their drama, I do have to give kudos to journalist Doug Smith, who is in charge of business news at The Charlotte Observer.

I had a childhood that made me into the person I am today.  A childhood spent on my family farm, over a century in the making.  Next door to my grandparents, across the street from my aunt and uncle.  With woods to play in, creeks to find crawdaddies in, old gold mines to explore.  Hard work was a part of life there-I learned to drive at the ripe old age of 13, in the hay truck (the bales were too heavy for me to life-still are!).  I'd give anything for my kids to have the same thing.

But they won't.  Time doesn't stand still and neither does progress.  We were once at the very edge of Charlotte's civilization.  With a place inside Cabarrus County, but close enough to Charlotte that we had a Charlotte telephone exchange, a rural route mailing address, and 20 minutes to the closest Harris Teeter (yes, we have had standards for quite some time).  Over the decades, development crept closer and closer, until the farm was abutting the mega-shopping that became Concord Mills Mall.

Developers called daily, everyone wanting this luscious piece of real estate so close to I-85, in a fabulous school district, close to shopping and close to Highland Creek (our best-selling community in Charlotte for years).  What most of the developers never understood was the the land was a part of us.  The dirt runs in our blood and ties us all together (my mom is the youngest of 8, so there are lot of us!).  It was never about the money.

People age.  Property taxes go up as land values increase.  And you can only fend off development for so long.  When the land was finally being courted and went under contract to Simonini Builders, it just made sense.  Please read this article by Doug Smith. As a member of the family, I'm proud that he took the time to explore the story and truly did justice to what's now one of the premiere new homes communities in Concord NC and in the entire Charlotte NC metro market.

And if you are curious about new homes in Christenbury, email or call Leigh Brown anytime.  I can show you things about the land that no other real estate broker in town knows (well, with the noted exception of my mom and dad!).