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Highlands Ranch Information
Pride in community is a hallmark of life in Highlands Ranch. Located in gorgeous, sunny Colorado, you will fall in love! You can see it in the beautifully maintained parks, neighborhoods, shops and business centers. You can hear it in the voices of Highlands Ranch Community Chorus members. You can feel it in the air as a red-winged blackbird soars above the Wildcat Mountain Reserve wildlife sanctuary. Each neighborhood of Highlands Ranch has something special to offer!  Center,
and Southridge are the four local rec centers. Each Highlands Ranch
rec center offers renters a pool, tennis, work out equipment, classes, and
more. Each individual recreation center has something unique!
Northridge Rec Center includes racquetball, indoor tennis courts, and more!
Westridge Rec Center features and outdoor pool for younger kids with a
jumping water fountain, large water slide, batting cages, and indoor roller
blade rink. Eastridge offers an indoor huge children's pool, indoor
water slide, climbing wall, arcade, and more! Southridge is Highlands
Ranch's newest recreation center, located near The Hearth and Firelight.
It has a lazy river, indoor pool playground, outdoor resort style splashing
pool, and more! As your leasing company, we provide the necessary form
so that as a renter, you can use all of this for FREE!
Residents are justifiably proud of their hometown, situated 12 miles south of Denver in northern Douglas County. Highlands Ranch continues to be Colorado's favorite new community and one of the top-rated master planned communities in America. Its immense popularity and national recognition can be explained quite simply by its exceptional master plan, which gives residents the opportunity to live, work and play within their own community. "When Mission Viejo Company began planning Highlands Ranch, we could envision families relaxing in the parks, and picture the first parade and community celebrations. It had all come alive before on the company's 10,000-acre site in California," says Craig McCallum, once a young planner and now President and CEO of the Mission Viejo Company. That California community, founded in 1966, was named Mission Viejo after the company that gave birth to it. Today it is a thriving and beautiful city that's home to almost 90,000 people. Highlands Ranch is designed to follow in its footsteps. Over 13,000 of the community's 22,000 acres have been set aside as open
The indoor and outdoor swimming pools, racquetball and tennis courts, aerobic rooms and softball fields are only the beginning of all that's offered by the recreation centers. Planned activities include classes and workshops, senior and youth activities, competitive and recreational leagues, civic and social organizations, and much more. When you lease a house in Highlands Ranch, you can enjoy these ammenities! There's always something fun going on at Highlands Ranch. Adding to the
hometown spirit are community-wide events held throughout the year,
including Easter egg hunts, a glorious old-fashioned Fourth of July
Celebration, a Fall Festival and a host of December holiday festivities.
These events allow neighbors to share their pride in the community and feel
a real sense of belonging. "You don't have to venture far from home to lead a full and active life at Highlands Ranch," exclaim Phil and Kaye Scott, Highlands Ranch's first family. Within the community you'll find medical centers and day care centers,
neighborhood and regional parks, an 8,200-acre open-space reserve, along
with business parks, places to shop and dine, picnic tables and playing
fields, an 18-hole golf course and another on the way, a full-service post
office, religious services, two private schools, and many
public schools. The community also offers a lot to look forward to in the future, with growth and development proceeding according to a well-considered master plan. Highlands Ranch's "Sweet 16" Anniversary year saw the groundbreaking and grand opening of the AMC Highlands Ranch 24 Theatres and a King Soopers grocery store, as well as two hotels, veterinary clinics, a church, a health care facility and much more. And in the fall of 1997, Highlands Ranch's second recreational facility opened. This 80,000-square-foot facility includes lap pools; steam, sauna and Jacuzzi spa; a dual gymnasium, climbing wall, basketball courts, teen center and youth activities wing with licensed day care. Also in 1997, the Highlands Ranch Town Center, became the central gathering place for all of Highlands Ranch, and added a Longs Drug and other businesses adjacent to the already open Safeway Marketplace grocery store, Blockbuster Video and McDonald's. The Town Center now features the Highlands Ranch's own library and a 5-acre park - a staging ground for special events, community activities and family get-togethers. All of these steps are being taken carefully and purposefully so that following generations who live and work here can experience that same, wonderful feeling - pride in their community. Whatever the season, Highlands Ranch has something to celebrate, thanks to the Highlands Ranch Community Association and the Highlands Ranch Metropolitan Districts. They sponsor exciting activities and memorable events that get people involved and create real pride in the community. School children and other residents plant trees on Arbor Day. There are smiling faces as youngsters find colorful eggs in the community's annual Easter Egg Hunt. The glorious Fourth of July Celebration lasts all day and includes old-fashioned, small town festivities capped by an impressive fireworks display. Summer also brings the Rocky Mountain Highland Games and Scottish Festival filled with sights and sounds of bagpipers and kilted contestants in authentic Scottish sporting events. Then comes the Fall Craft Fair and Fall Festival. In winter, there's a Holiday Craft Bazaar along with a Chanukah Happening, Santa's Arrival and Tree Lighting Ceremony and a host of other holiday happenings.
Highlands Ranch has a long and fascinating history steeped in the tradition of the Old West. Once a hunting area for the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians, it was claimed as Spanish territory in the mid-1500s. The territory passed back and forth between Spain and France until Napoleon sold it to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In the late 1860s David Gregory became the first person to actually live on land now included in Highlands Ranch, and Kit Carson built his last campfire near the property. During the following years, portions of the land were homesteaded by Lewis Wales Cleveland, the sixth cousin of President Grover Cleveland; acquired by John W. Springer, a descendant of the Russian czar; and home to a ranch making brick and Limburger cheeses. The first phase of Highlands Ranch Mansion, shown in the photo and originally called "Castle Isabel," was built from 1891 to 1904. Around the same time, John Springer was acquiring additional land, bringing his holdings to 23,000 acres. The property exchanged hands several more times before Lawrence C. Phipps, Jr., son of a U.S. senator from Colorado, purchased it in 1937 for cattle ranching. After his death, the property was owned for a short time by Highland Ventures, a group including Marvin Davis and other investors, before Mission Viejo Company acquired an option on the property in 1978 and purchased it the following year. Districts were created, construction began, and in 1981 the Phil and Kaye Scott family became the first to lead a group of proud "pioneers" into their new homes in Highlands Ranch. Good schools - they're high on the checklist of parents of school-age children as they shop for a new place to live. When deciding where to rent a house, schools are usually on the top of the list! If you're one, you want to know about academics, test scores, safety, extracurricular opportunities. And will your child be happy here? Thousands of parents have asked those questions about Highlands Ranch schools and placed a check mark on the schools' entry on their list. The statistics are available from the school district, but assurance comes from a visit to the schools, where you can see firsthand the happy kids, their work pinned to the bulletin boards, the teachers and principals glad to talk to you. Highlands Ranch is served by two private schools, as well as many public elementary schools, four middle schools and four high schools within the Douglas County School District. High schools are: Highlands Ranch High, ThunderRidge High, Mountain Vista High, and Rock Canyon High. The school district's mission is to promote the acquisition of knowledge, development of skills for learning, the understanding of ideals and values and the enhancement of individual potential. It prides itself on a well-researched and integrated curriculum, a rich array of extracurricular offerings, strong community involvement and a board of education with a vision of being among the top school districts in the nation. The Douglas County School District has set excellence as its benchmark, and Highlands Ranch schools strive for nothing less than exceeding that standard. And they are succeeding. ACT and SAT scores in the district are consistently above state and national averages, and rising. Academics come first, of course, but there is much more to education in Highlands Ranch. High school students are offered more than 50 competitive athletic and other activities, and nearly 80 percent of the students take part in extracurricular activities. A new gorgeous, state-of-the-art stadium has been built to host local football games and other events. Many elementary schools in Highlands Ranch are on a four-track or "year-round" schedule, with breaks distributed through the year, maximizing efficient use of the facilities. Other advantages of year-round school are that children are less likely to forget what they learned over a long vacation and teachers can spend less time on review when they return. Teachers who have taught for other school districts before coming to Highlands Ranch schools will tell you that the staff and the commitment of parents give Highlands Ranch schools their educational edge. Community volunteers and citizen committees ensure that these truly are community schools. The non-profit Douglas County Educational Foundation has dedicated itself to providing resources that enhance children's learning. This year, the foundation presented $34,000 in grants to teachers, parents and students. As Highlands Ranch High School celebrated its 10th anniversary, the community's second high school was in its first year. Thunder Ridge High School, which opened in fall 1996 with ninth-grade students, expanded by one class level each year until its first class of seniors graduated in the year 2000. Ranch View, a second middle school on the Thunder Ridge High School campus, also opened in 1996, as did an elementary school. Since then, Mountain Vista High School and Mountain Ridge Middle School have opened as well. These two lucky campuses probably have the best views in town! We have also welcome Rock Canyon High school and Rocky Heights Middle School to serve our education needs! The "oohs" and "aahs" come easily as you step through the doors of
Highlands Ranch's model homes. The work of architects, builders and
designers comes together in these models and invites you to imagine your own
family in each floor plan with each unique set of features and decor. As the
property manager in Highlands Ranch, we can show you the best these houses
have to offer! Distinctive design is the only fitting description covering the broad range of styles in Highlands Ranch homes. The choices run from traditional and contemporary to colonial and ranch-style, and from condominiums in the $100,000s to single-family homes ranging from the low $200,000s up to the $600,000s and higher custom homes being built in a gated neighborhood with extraordinary views to both mountains and downtown Denver. There are, however, some common denominators in design, especially from the inside out. Light. Highlands Ranch homes let in the light and reflect the bright, upbeat lifestyles of their residents and their love of the outdoors and the Rocky Mountains seen from so many west-facing windows. Windows come in many shapes. Crescents above rectangles, circles set in crescents, octagons, bay windows, small-paned windows, expanses of glass, glass blocks. And there are skylights, too. Height. Ceilings vault up in many rooms - kitchen, family
room, entry. A bedroom's coffered ceiling adds architectural detail and
richness to the setting. The lifted space lifts the mood of the rooms.
Stairways rise from two-story foyers to landings that look down on other
spaces, the family room perhaps. Open space. Like the open spaces that abound outdoors in Highlands Ranch, spaces inside many of the homes are open, airy and sometimes flowing one into another. Many popular designs feature kitchens opening onto family rooms, with the feeling of one large family space in which someone might be at work in the kitchen, a child could be doing homework on the informal dining table just beyond and still more family cozied in by the fireplace or entertainment center in the space beyond that - separate but together, fitting for today's lifestyles. Other floor plans combine living room and formal dining, creating a flexible space to accommodate individual priorities - and furniture sizes. Guests can move easily from conversation and appetizers in the living room to the formal table. Levels. When the goal is to signal a separate space, architects often choose to moderate the level. In one home plan, for example, the dining area and living room open to each other, but the dining area is three steps up. A decorative low divider adds to the ambiance of an indoor verandah. A step down or a step up also can create the sense of stepping into a different world, to a formal living area, perhaps. Master bedroom and bath suites. Many home designs in Highlands Ranch devote much more space to the master-bath, closet and dressing-area than seen in older-generation homes. Dual vanities, separate shower and bath are standard in most models. Walk-in closets and jetted tubs are popular amenities. Kitchens. The architects and builders of Highlands Ranch homes understand how critical good design is to this important room of the house. Cooks needs counter space, storage and a smart work flow pattern from sink to dishwasher to cabinet, and from refrigerator to counter to stove to oven. Cooks who like the work island concept will find it in some designs; in others they'll see efficient L-shapes, and in still others long open stretches of countertop. Dining nooks are another feature architects offer to meet individual family lifestyles. Special rooms. Some families would greatly appreciate a sitting room off the master bedroom, where parents could read quietly while children do homework in their rooms down the hall. Or maybe it's the reverse - the kids get the landing or loft area outside their bedrooms for desks and homework and hang-out-together space. Other special rooms in some Highlands Ranch home designs include bonus rooms, great rooms (some with wet bars), studies and, on the more practical end of the spectrum, mud rooms. In some custom homes, buyers have the option of expanding certain spaces, for an even larger master bath suite, for example. That means when you rent a house, you get to enjoy it! Flooring, carpeting, countertops, interior wood trims and wall surfaces. Hardwood flooring shows up in many Highlands Ranch homes, in foyers or across open expanses. Oak is the most popular color stain, but maple hues and darker woods are options as well. Wood trim along banisters coordinates with the flooring and cabinetry. Countertops in kitchens, baths and laundry rooms can be basic laminate or upgraded to premium quality, tile, or in some custom homes even marble. White and easy-on-the-eye earth and gray tones are popular. White is the basic wall color in almost all homes, but in model homes designers hint of how homeowners might customize with color, combining cream walls with white wood trim or tinting a wall nook where a decorative vase or sculpture might be placed. Walls and ceilings are typically textured. Designers add wallpaper in powder rooms, baths and bedrooms of model homes. Exterior design. The variety, quality and color of all exterior building materials must meet the standards of the planned community. There is much room, however, for good design within those spectrums. Exteriors may be approved siding, brick, stone, stucco or a combination. Roofing also varies. From a young couple's first home in the colonial style, in pale yellow siding with white trim on shutters and columns, to an elegant all-brick executive home with copper-roofed turret study, Highlands Ranch holds many choices appealing to many tastes. Parks, open space, trails and recreational facilities are interwoven into Highlands Ranch "Planners gave thorough attention to making recreational opportunities an integral part of community life in Highlands Ranch," says Allan Chapman, president of the Highlands Ranch Community Association Board of Directors. As a result of this planning, residents can join organized activities or just decide on the spur of the moment to go for a picnic in a nearby park, hike or bike on paved trails, or take their children to a playground. As your leasing company, we can show you these great features of renting in Highlands Ranch! The Highlands Ranch Metropolitan Districts currently manage and maintain nearly 2,200 acres of parks, trails and open space, and the Highlands Ranch Community Association operates the recreation centers, offering a variety of programs for all residents. Numerous parks Two large community parks, Falcon and Northridge, feature athletic fields, picnic areas, playgrounds and more. Ten neighborhood parks offer open sporting fields, play areas and picnic facilities. In addition to this community park system, Douglas County operates the 92-acre Highland Heritage Regional Park. This regional park provides athletic playing fields, natural areas, picnic and playground areas and more. Wildcat Mountain Reserve In the southern portion of Highlands Ranch, Mission Viejo Company has designated 8,200 acres as the Wildcat Mountain Reserve. This area is dedicated to the preservation of open space, wildlife habitat enhancement and outdoor recreation purposes. Miles of interconnecting trails Oh, the places you can go! An extensive trail system in Highlands Ranch allows you to bike, hike and run throughout the community. Currently there are over 20 miles of paved and natural-surface trails. Twenty more miles of trails are on the drawing board. The trail system connects major community facilities, including The Links at Highlands Ranch, an 18-hole golf course; the High Line Canal Trail, and Crestridge Pool in Falcon Park (where a new recreation center is being built). Golf courses An 18-hole public golf course, The Links at Highlands Ranch, is in the Eastridge neighborhood. This executive-style course is a challenge to every type of golfer. In addition, Highlands Ranch celebrated the groundbreaking on its second golf course in 1997. The Highlands Ranch Golf Club, a championship-length, Hale Irwin-designed course, broke ground in March and will celebrate its grand opening in 1998. New owners of a miniature golf course and driving range next to Highland Heritage Regional Park began redevelopment and improvement of the courses and facility in early spring 1997. Recreation facilities The Highlands Ranch Recreation Centers are open to Highlands Ranch residents, most of whom automatically become members when purchasing a home. The recreation centers are owned and operated by the Highlands Ranch Community Association and supported by membership dues. The 53,000-square-foot Highlands Ranch Recreation Center-Northridge Facility is a great place to swim, work out, or take a class in anything from tumbling to Tae Kwon Do and from first aid to financial planning. Programs are provided for children, adults and families. And, the Golden Highlanders- Highlands Ranch's seniors club - hosts a variety of events and outings throughout the year. The Northridge Facility includes 11 lighted tennis courts, nine racquetball courts, weight rooms, cardio and workout rooms, an outdoor swimming pool and tot pool, an indoor pool and running track, and full locker room facilities. In 1997, Highlands Ranch celebrated the grand opening of its second recreation center, which is adjacent to the Falcon Community Park in the Eastridge neighborhood. A third recreation center opened in the Westridge neighborhood as well. This beautiful facility has the same great opportunities as the other rec centers. There is an outdoor pool at this recreation center that caters especially to small children. The "beach" entry provides swimming in water from 1/2 inch deep to 3.5 feet deep. The kids will also love the two story twisting water slide, "whale" water slide and "jumping" interactive water fountain. Shopping in Highlands Ranch is above all convenience. You'll find your everyday needs - from grocery store to dry cleaner - well met. And on your route you can make quick stops at the bank or credit union, the service station and drive-through window at Burger King. You can rent a movie, photocopy your resume, grab a bagel, pick up a prescription . . . . Or you can cruise the aisles of Target or Wal-Mart, or select a major appliance at Circuit City. A new regional mall - Park Meadows Town Center - with Nordstrom, Dillard's and a multitude of specialty stores - is just minutes away. Dining out is another important element in the lifestyle of Highlands Ranch. You'll find fare for the family at Red Robin and Le Peep, steak at the Outback Steakhouse, Mexican at On The Border, Italian at Nicolo's Chicago-Style Pizza and broad-ranging menus at such places as Chili's Grill and Bar and Ruby Tuesday. Many, many more restaurants are available as well! Check out other links for more info: The Metro Districts of Highlands Ranch The local government in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Elected board members represent five geographic districts in Highlands Ranch. This Web site offers comprehensive information about Highlands Ranch, Colorado. http://www.highlandsranch.org/
Highland Ranch Community Association Homepage This website offers information about the many recreational activities available in our community.
Douglas Public Library District We have a wonderful library network in Highlands Ranch. Click on this link to visit.
Highlands Ranch Chamber of Commerce http://www.highlandsranchchamber.org/
http://www.highlandsranch.com/ Douglas County
School General Information Website This wonderful website provides information about the RTD in our area.
Highlands Ranch Herald Newspaper Here is our local newspaper online! http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1485
This link will take you to the Denver Newspaper online. Check out local stories or the classified ads.
Another online Denver Newspaper!
Wikipedia Entry on Highlands Ranch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlands_Ranch,_Colorado
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space, parks and community facilities linked by a 22-mile trail system -
with 20 additional miles planned - for walking, jogging and bicycling.
The average family
income is $80,310, 63% higher than the Denver metro average. 
