About Us

Tim and Iva Ryan, Founders, The Sanctuary Village

When Iva and I moved our family from South Florida to Macon County, NC, we looked upon our new home as a refuge, a sanctuary, from the stress-inducing atmosphere of so many of America’s metropolitan areas. But it wasn’t escape that drew us. It was the opportunity for a different kind of engagement – engagement with the natural setting, with the traditions of a historic community, with other citizens who prefer small town mountain life to the annoyances of too many hours spent in cars and in places too soulless to be called real communities.

Since those early days of our planning, the challenges we’ve faced as a nation, as individuals and families, have only heightened the appeal of a different way of living. So, we’ve begun to build it. In a place that already provides what other developers have to create as “amenities.”

Outside our doors, we have a welcoming town of some 4,000 year-round residents, a population that swells in the three seasons of spring, summer, and fall to help sustain dining and entertainment options beyond the capacities of towns our size. And within easy drives from our neighborhood, there’s the outdoor recreation capital of the Eastern U.S. The Appalachian and Bartram Trails, the trout-filled rivers, the rafting and kayaking and mountain biking in hundreds of thousands of acres of National Forests.

We were able to acquire 23 undeveloped acres, one of the largest remaining intown parcels in the region. By prioritizing traditional neighborhood approaches, where a mix of housing types nestle comfortably with one another in compact patterns, we’ll be able to set aside some 40 percent of our land as green space for parks and natural walking corridors. Sidewalks and walking paths will abound. As a result, Sanctuary Village provides an option for getting around rare in communities built in a car-dependent era. We know we can’t live without cars. But our in-town location and the design of our public and private spaces, including homes with garages in the back, makes walking not only a realistic alternative, but a pleasure.

We have the space to provide, over time, a wide variety of housing options, including cottage clusters and mansion flats with elevators. But there will also be something very familiar about these designs. They are drawn from traditions that have proved beautiful and livable over generations.

That’s the combination we want: the latest in design and building techniques marshaled to achieve the best in traditional neighborhood development. We want our version of the new to be worthy of the best of the old. The right homes in the right place for the right times.