Cascades of texas to complete Phase I with 75% of initial home sites sold

Tyler, Texas – August 11, 2005 – The Cascades of Texas, the 500-acre golf and lakeshore community off Loop 323 in Tyler, has announced the sales of 75% of the home sites offered in the Cascades’ Phase I, with a few weeks still to go before lot development and roads in the first phase are completed.

Lew Anderton, Owner and Partner of The Cascades, says, “Phase I will be complete in September, with almost three miles of new roads for the community entirely finished, and development complete on 80 lots.”

The Cascades offers lakefront, hillside and wooded lots ranging from $100,000 to
$1 million. Of 80 lots in Phase I, 61 have already sold for a combined total of
$11 million, an average of more than $180,000 per home site. So far, about 25% of the sales have been to buyers moving to The Cascades from outside Tyler, representing new investment in East Texas that is gratifying to Anderton, a Henderson native.

Because The Cascades is drawing attention from buyers throughout Texas, Briggs-Freeman Real Estate Brokerage, an exclusive affiliate for Christie’s Great Estates, joined The Cascades team to provide a Dallas presence for the premier development. A specialist in the sale of high-end estate homes in most exclusive neighborhoods in and around Dallas, Briggs-Freeman will introduce Tyler’s Cascades to its clientele.

With Phase I infrastructure complete, the Cascades will have completed the largest private construction job in East Texas: not for a specific structure but for the miles of roads that wind through the hilly, heavily wooded community, just four miles from both downtown and central Tyler.

“The topography here is spectacular. Many home sites that aren’t even lakeside enjoy extraordinary views of our centerpiece, Lake Bellwood,” Anderton says. “My partner Bill Cawley and I were determined to preserve the forest setting, scenic views and terrain, and this ultimately became a huge commitment. With over a million dollars spent on natural stone retaining walls alone, The Cascades is one of the most significant landscaping efforts ever seen in Tyler. But we think the results are worth it.”

The expense was completely worthwhile, he added, because in addition to preserving the wooded, rolling landscape, these retaining walls – some more than a dozen feet height – are a strikingly attractive feature in their own right, one that typically draws comments from visitors to The Cascades.

The completed infrastructure work will allow future phases of the 500-acre community to be completed more quickly, even as sales continue to outpace the expectations and forecasts of The Cascades team and its consultants.

Homes under construction in The Cascades will range from about $600,000 to $2.25 million, according to Synthesis Realty Group LLC, an adviser to a select portfolio of luxury resort and residential enclaves worldwide that includes The Cascades as well as developments in the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Costa Rica and Arizona. Robert Burnett, Synthesis Principal and Chief Executive Officer, says, “We were attracted to The Cascades project because we recognized in it a quest for quality that matches up to any project we’ve seen around the world.”