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Then it must have absorbed some previously constructed neighborhoods because I saw a lot of older houses from the early 90s that definitely appear to be within what is now Cinco Ranch. They are right along the lake.
In any event it does appear that most of the area is quite new with a few older and established neighborhoods on the east side of Mason Road.
In 1937, Bassett Blakely sold his ranch to William M. Wheless, Jr. Wheless then brought in four of his friends as partners in the operation. The joint venture of these "five" (cinco) partners became the Cinco Ranch. Subsequently, developers purchased the Cinco Ranch in 1984, and the first homes were built in 1991.
...my in-laws are in a part with mature trees, from the mid 90's. Fry Road near Westheimer.
Oh, and Houstongal. We visit the plano and frisco areas quite a bit and frankly I think I simply must not have seen the right neighborhoods or something. Because I really don't get the attraction to the area. The older northern suburbs over closer to Fort Worth seem nicer to me. Like Grapevine, Colleyville, Southlake, Coppell. And even those just don't have the same sort of community feel that I saw in Cinco Ranch. We recently visited friends who work in Southlake and that area felt more like everyone is living in their own little castle with a moat. No sidewalks on the streets and just not the same feeling of community.
Hi there texasdiver and everyone! I hope you post a bit more on your thoughts on Cinco Ranch! My husband and I have a little girl (almost 3), living here in San Diego right now and possibly looking to move back to Houston (I was born and raised there) or even Dallas in search of a good IT job. I was THINKING of looking in Dallas in the Frisco and Plano areas too, but I guess you kind of answered that question for me. Of course I would want to see for myself to be sure...
Same old story here... Cost of living out here in Cali is ridiculous (we own a home, but weather's not cutting it anymore for us) and we've been looking fruitlessly to find a community that can even touch the picture you've painted of Cinco Ranch that's within our means. Are all areas as family friendly as what you've described? Or are there certain parts of Cinco Ranch that are better suited for young families? Is the Seven Lakes area of Cinco Ranch far removed from the water park and other amenities? Is it just as nice? What area approximately was your friend in?
Are there a lot of Cali transplants in the Cinco Ranch area and is it a good or bad thing? Are there a lot of stay at home parents? Are the neighbors really as friendly as I'm hoping they are? I LOVE the idea of just hanging in the front lawns with neighbors watching the kids grow and play together...
Sorry so many questions. Hoping to plan a trip out there to see for myself. Katy seems to have changed quite a bit from when I was a little girl. Getting quite excited that I might have finally found the "perfect" place to raise our little girl and be closer to family. Just never thought it would be back in Houston... Thanks in advance for all your answers!
In 1937, Bassett Blakely sold his ranch to William M. Wheless, Jr. Wheless then brought in four of his friends as partners in the operation. The joint venture of these "five" (cinco) partners became the Cinco Ranch. Subsequently, developers purchased the Cinco Ranch in 1984, and the first homes were built in 1991.
...my in-laws are in a part with mature trees, from the mid 90's. Fry Road near Westheimer.
Isn't that Kelliwood, though? I know there is a small section of Cinco Ranch at that intersection, but it is a newer community.
Hi there texasdiver and everyone! I hope you post a bit more on your thoughts on Cinco Ranch! My husband and I have a little girl (almost 3), living here in San Diego right now and possibly looking to move back to Houston (I was born and raised there) or even Dallas in search of a good IT job. I was THINKING of looking in Dallas in the Frisco and Plano areas too, but I guess you kind of answered that question for me. Of course I would want to see for myself to be sure...
Same old story here... Cost of living out here in Cali is ridiculous (we own a home, but weather's not cutting it anymore for us) and we've been looking fruitlessly to find a community that can even touch the picture you've painted of Cinco Ranch that's within our means. Are all areas as family friendly as what you've described? Or are there certain parts of Cinco Ranch that are better suited for young families? Is the Seven Lakes area of Cinco Ranch far removed from the water park and other amenities? Is it just as nice? What area approximately was your friend in?
Are there a lot of Cali transplants in the Cinco Ranch area and is it a good or bad thing? Are there a lot of stay at home parents? Are the neighbors really as friendly as I'm hoping they are? I LOVE the idea of just hanging in the front lawns with neighbors watching the kids grow and play together...
Sorry so many questions. Hoping to plan a trip out there to see for myself. Katy seems to have changed quite a bit from when I was a little girl. Getting quite excited that I might have finally found the "perfect" place to raise our little girl and be closer to family. Just never thought it would be back in Houston... Thanks in advance for all your answers!
Heh, well I'll do my best. Mind you there are people on this board who live near or in Cinco and I've only visited twice on the weekends so I have a fairly cursory view of the place. But it is the view of someone not from Texas but who has been exploring the state for the past 4 years contemplating where we might eventually want to live. I followed my wife's career here 4 years ago from Juneau and lived for many years in Portland and Seattle so I'm really a native Northwesterner. But Texas is growing on us.
First of all, I've been to dozens of planned subdivisions in San Antonio, DFW, Houston, and Waco (yes there are some in Waco) and there are fairly typical features common to most of the upscale ones. Features like community pools, walking/bike trails, green spaces and corridors, and relatively consistent design standards for houses. Cinco Ranch is not unique in that respect.
However my own initial impressions is that the Cinco Ranch designers did an especially good job planning and implementing the public spaces. There are green corridors thorughout the subdivision with walking/biking paths and it appears that you can get almost anywhere in the entire place by bike or walking with ever going on a street. On top of that, most if not all of the streets have sidewalks in front, which is an increasing rarety in suburban subdivisions. That makes it much easier to go on walks with your kids without getting them smacked by cars. And the public landscaping is really impressive and about as nice as I've seen anywhere. They've planted thousands of trees and lush flowers everywhere. And they seem to maintain it very well. I haven't visited the Woodlands which everyone says is nice. But Cinco has the nicest public spaces of any development I've seen in Texas.
The different neighborhoods within Cinco are grouped by price for the most part. It seems that they also segregate somewhat by age, with the younger families living in the cheaper parts of Cinco and the older families living in the larger more expensive neighborhoods. Where my friends live is a relatively inexpensive part of Cinco with houses in the high 100s and low 200s. You see lots and lots of small children around on bikes and skates. And there are public playgrounds everywhere. Nice ones at that. In addition there are a variety of public pools, a great waterpark, and a beach club and plenty of lakes that are stocked. I saw lots of kids riding their bikes to the lakes with fishing rods and some old duffers out there fly fishing. And, of course there are lots of golf courses but I don't golf so I didn't pay attention to that. All residents get this special key card that gets you into all the pools and clubs and you can bring a certain number of guests. The waterpark was about 3 minutes away by car and the beach club was about 5 minutes. I don't know about the other pools. They had two great playgrounds, one a block away and the other 3 blocks away in the other direction.
The somewhat more upscale neighborhoods seem to have older families. You see lots of High School cheerleader and sports signs in the front yards. Here in Texas it seems to be the tradition to put a sign out in your front yard for your kid if they do anything from football & cheerleading to band. So the more upscale neighborhoods with larger houses are filled with all these C-R signs with kids names on them saying what they do. The architecture is really nothing special. Sort of traditional McMansion stuff. Very traditional. Very few modern houses and really few Texas or southwestern type designs. Mostly just brick 2-story monsters that are pretty nondescript. Everything is well groomed and green. But you don't move there for ecclectic architecture.
The friends that I visited are probably somewhat typical. She is a family physician and he is a software engineer who works out of a home office for a big multinational located in Houston. He says the neighborhood is absolutely full of stay-home moms who don't seem to be doing much at all. He is a very attractive guy who is always working out or out running/biking when not working and says he has had a parade of neighbor women dropping by his front door to welcome him to the neighborhood and to ask things like "do you need help finding a church?' to which he generally replies. "Honey, this is Texas for God's sake, you can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting a church. The last thing we need help finding is a church. A good brewpub, that's a different story though"
According to wikipedia the median houshold income in Cinco is about $110,000 and the median family income is about $114,000 and it appears to be full of young professional men (doctors, lawyers, engineers, petroleum & mining industry managers etc.) who are almost all married and the majority of the wives are stay-home moms or doing more traditionally female jobs like teaching, real estate, medical fields, etc. My friend says he is pretty unique to be married and working at home while his wife pulls down double his salary as that is usually the other way around.
It struck me as quite white and probably very Republican. Although like anyplace there are plenty of exceptions. The non-whites seem to be mostly Asian and Indian (from India). I saw very few blacks or Hispanics that were residents but plenty of them mowing lawns. California is probably the same.
In short, it's probably the perfect place if you have kids and want the suburban sheltered lifestyle where they can play outside and around the neighborhood with about as good of public schools that you'll find anywhere in the US. If you are childless and just want an active outdoor lifestyle then it would probably be fine too but you'd feel somewhat of an outsider. If you are single you'd probably put a bullet in your head.
SDMom, Cinco Ranch is full of Californians...I found one street that had nothing families from the West Coast. From a lifelong Katy resident its amazing the growth of Cinco Ranch...
That's not surprising. All of Texas seems to be full of newcomers. Here in my own subdivision outside Waco my immediate neighbors are from:
Richmond Virginia
Fairfax Virginia
Bethesda Maryland
Memphis
Las Vegas
Wichita Kansas
France
and my wife and I who moved here from Juneau Alaska.
I have to go more than one block to find someone who is actually from Texas. I would expect a booming place like Katy draws even more from out of state.
SDMom, Cinco Ranch is full of Californians...I found one street that had nothing families from the West Coast. From a lifelong Katy resident its amazing the growth of Cinco Ranch...
Thank you charris911, and yeah, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. A lot of people seem to be getting out of this beautiful but real estate insane place. But is there a lot of turnover in residents? I noticed that there's a few relocation specialists that specialize in helping people transferring in and out the Cinco Ranch area. I figured that if I move there, I'm there to stay for a while, and I would hate to get to know people to find out 80% aren't going to be there in the next year or two...
In short, it's probably the perfect place if you have kids and want the suburban sheltered lifestyle where they can play outside and around the neighborhood with about as good of public schools that you'll find anywhere in the US. If you are childless and just want an active outdoor lifestyle then it would probably be fine too but you'd feel somewhat of an outsider. If you are single you'd probably put a bullet in your head.
I was just asking a good friend of mine today about sheltering kids. How bad/good is it really? Again I'm totally loving the idea of Cinco Ranch. High expectations without having seen the place, but the idea that my little girl can run about the neighborhood with other kids (can't do that in the neighborhood I'm in, even though it's relatively safe - no kids anyways), see parents socializing with the neighbors around the same age (love my neighbors, but most are retirees), not have to deal with crime and poverty... i guess if we let her know what's out there, and they realize they're living in a bit of a utopia, maybe it's not so bad? I guess i just don't understand the whole surburbia stereotype and just wanting the best for my little girl without completely screwing her up. Sorry if I got a bit off topic here.
texasdiver, THANK YOU so much for the detailed insight you've given on Cinco Ranch. With this information, I'll hopefully know where to look in other neighborhoods in the Houston/Dallas areas as well for the younger families. Hehe, and totally cracked me up with the "single bullet in the head" comment...
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