Sunday, August 26, 2007

Kettle Valley Development

When my folks moved up from California after my dad retired, the Mission Hills area was a nice neighborhood, right next to the woods. In fact, there were wildlife warnings that bears lived nearby and to be careful when people went for walks & hikes.

Within a few years tho, a developer bought the land and started the Kettle Valley development.

In the beginning, it was really just a "town center" with a little store and stuff. Now it's a bar & grill, fitness center, and real estate office, among other things.

The homes in the initial development were mid-sized places. Most were 3 story homes, with a basement at the bottom, kitchen/living room & office on the main floor, and bedrooms on the upper floor.
The homes were all along a street, close together, and the developer would deck them out at Christmas & Halloween. It looked very Main St. Disneyland, really.
Now that's all still there, but boy has Kettle Valley grown! It's not just these mid-size homes anymore - some of these places are almost mansions. The view of the lake is encouraging the development, and everyone has balconies to get their view!
My sister, Connie, has a townhouse in the middle of the development. There's a big park nearby, as well as big open areas for playing soccer or ice hockey, depending on the season. If you don't have a great view from your home, you can take a short walk to benches along the greenbelt to enjoy sunsets & the view of the lake. It is really picturesque. My folks and Connie get a lot of walking in. Sometimes they're invited to look around the insides of houses being built. Or the workmen building the paths for the greenbelt will show them the plans so they know what's coming. It's pretty cool. The last photo, you can still see the fire damage from the big fire four years ago - it burned through here and actually burned through to my folk's street (they were evacuated for 2 weeks, and then allowed to come home). It never would have reached them if all these houses had been there! At that time, it was only the Main street & Town Center. Although the nice park my dad helped build burned down completely. The new park is all plastic vs. the wood like the old one.

1 comment:

keeka said...

Nice post! But....more more more!
More photos more stuff about what you did there, come on, I'm waaaiittting! Hee hee! I really am looking forward to more posts!