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New Northern California Community Offers Tech Millionaires A Break In Nature

Walden Monterey is inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s Walden

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Just an hour’s drive from Silicon Valley, a luxury hill-top community inspired by the work of Henry David Thoreau is offering wealthy buyers a chance to reconnect with nature by selling 20-acre plots of land for $5 million a piece.

Walden Monterey in Monterey, California—named after Thoreau’s 1854 book "Walden," the author's reflection of living in nature—is being marketed as a new real estate community on a wooded hillside on the Monterey Peninsula overlooking Monterey Bay. And 2017, the year in which the project was announced, marks the 200th birthday of Thoreau, born July 12, 1817.

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"When I first purchased the property, I decided to put up a tent and stay on the land to better understand what made it so special. As I started spending more time on the property, I realized that it had a profound effect on me," said developer Nick Jekogian, president and CEO of Signature Group Investments in a news release.

"The weeks I spent in Monterey became my personal Walden, and that moved me to develop this project with this specific approach," he said. "Walden Monterey is a contemporary expression of the philosophy of living in harmony with nature, to be able to disconnect in order to reconnect with what matters."

A spokeswoman for Walden Monterey said that buyers interested in snapping up a parcel must adhere by the community’s two guiding rules: Nature was here first, do not disturb it, and build a sustainable home.

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When it comes to building, there are no size or design restrictions, but according to the spokeswoman, the team hope that residents will want to preserve the landscape. Walden Monterey has a team of preferred architects on hand that are familiar with the land and the project’s vision, but any resident can bring in their own team.

The community will host a visiting artists program along with a fellowship program to help educate residents on nature and sustainable systems, and residents will have access to 200 acres of open space, including a community-wide trail system, a Zen meditation garden and a treehouse for kids. Once the project is completed, buyers will have use of a roving guest house, but for now, the movable structure allows buyers a taste of life on the land they’ve bought.

"I see this as an idyllic getaway community for Silicon Valley, allowing members of the tech world to disconnect for a while," Mr. Jekogian said.

The first eight of 22 lots will be available in fall 2017; three have already been pre-sold, two of those to builders.