Douglas Ranch, Granite Bay, CA

Douglas Ranch is a small, deliberate enclave in southwest Granite Bay, a set of fewer than a hundred custom-built homes laid out on parcels that typically run to multiple acres apiece. The scale is the point: this is a neighborhood measured in ranch-sized lots rather than rooftops, and the homes reflect it, individually designed and priced well into seven figures. It sits near the Granite Bay Golf Club and the western neighborhoods of Greyhawk and Rancho Del Oro, close to the Douglas Boulevard corridor that carries the community's name and most of its through traffic. Inside the enclave, though, the streets stay quiet and private, with the space between houses doing the work. The compromises are the ones that come with acreage in a semi-rural setting: everything retail is a drive, the nearest freeway ramps are minutes west, and summer heat is a fixture. What you buy is room, privacy, and a custom home on land that is increasingly hard to find this close to Roseville and Folsom. For buyers chasing acreage over square footage, Douglas Ranch is a short list unto itself.