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BEDICO CREEK IS NOT YOUR AVERAGE neighborhood. In fact, it’s not a neighborhood at all. Bedico Creek is a conservation community. Located on 1,000 acres of preserved land, it brings nature to your backdoor with the help of developer David Waltemath.

Originally, the land was earmarked by the Poole family to be turned into a golf course community. That never came to fruition, and the family sold the property to a land developer who also wanted to do a golf course development. “They started it, and it was very successful from a sales standpoint,” David says. “They sold probably 50 lots at well over $100,000 a piece. So the market was interested and really grasped on to this area and the property.”

But the recession that hit not long after, coupled with the debt load, took the golf course under. “That presented me a terrific opportunity — a very great and rare opportunity — to take such a beautiful piece of property and re-mold it to what I thought it should have been in the first place: a conservation community,” David says. “When the property went under with the land developer, I was able to buy it from the banks, which is the negative side of the story. The great side is where it’s going from here.”

And boy, is it going! “We bought it with no debt, so we don’t have the burden of the debt that they had before, and we have a real, long-term strategic look at what we’re going to do with the property,” David says. “In a nutshell, we’re
going to have a series of neighborhoods, just kind of dropped in, with different parks, lakes and conversation areas.” At over 60 percent green space, Bedico Creek is unique. “I’d venture to say that unless there’s one out there already permitted that I don’t know about, there’ll never be another thousand-acre master plan community in West St. Tammany. We will be the last one,” David says.

Since purchasing the property two years ago, David has invested a lot of money in the project, transforming the nine holes of golf that were there into a park system, installing a gate and entry and also adding an amenity package. Amenities include a fishing pier; a lakehouse party pavilion; Sunset Point, where residents can watch the sun go down; and toddler play areas. More amenities, such as a swimming pool and an area for beach volleyball, are still to come.

In addition to the amenities, Bedico Creek features over three miles of walking and biking trails, 50 acres of maintained parks and 20 acres of beautiful lakes, all of which flow in and around the stunning homes to make up the 377- acre nature preserve.

David, whose developments include the English Turn Golf & Country Club in New Orleans, sees the potential effect Bedico Creek will have. “It’s completely new, and we’re going to make an enormous economic impact in West St. Tammany,” he says. “We are permitted for up to 900 units in this collection of neighborhoods. So you’re talking about $270 million in homes that’s going to be in this development. That’s a huge impact. People have already decided that this is what they want. We’ve had a tremendous amount of people who have said, ‘OK, I see the vision; I understand the vision; I love the vision’ and have been buying properties and houses here.”

Lots are priced from the $40s-$160s and home pricing starts in the mid-$200s and goes up to over $1 million. Three existing neighborhoods — Garden, Estate and Manor — are available now; they are three different neighborhoods with three different price ranges and three different products. Two new neighborhoods, Longview and Preserve, are now complete — and lots sell quickly!

Bedico Creek resident Debbie Williams was sold on the idea of the conservation community, and most importantly, so were her kids. “My kids and I come from the country, and this allows us to enjoy that with the city setting nearby,” she says. “When we were looking, we looked at many different areas, and the kids had big opinions. When I took them to Bedico Creek, what they loved the most was the privacy and the feeling that we were safe here. It’s about the land, the peacefulness and the environment. There’s nothing else like this on the northshore.”

Another Bedico Creek resident, Dr. Bob Hancock, knows exactly what Debbie is talking about. “Everything is so quiet, peaceful and natural. It’s truly modern living while enjoying the beauty of the outdoors. So many places to fish, hike, bike and explore—you never really feel like you’re in your
backyard!”

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