After a long pre-development prelude, site work is moving ahead at an impressive pace at Windsor’s North Village, a 40-home subdivision steeped in sustainability that will complete the buildout of the elite north island community.

Underground utilities have been installed, roads are mostly complete, and the site – a 52-acre former citrus grove – is being dramatically reshaped into a garden-like subdivision where life will combine the pleasures of a childhood treehouse and the finest modern residential design.

A large freshwater lake with an island and a bridge, a tidal estuary, and a weir connecting the two bodies of water have been carved in the fallow land, and a small army of workers are on site daily, fine tuning the contours of the property and planting tens of thousands of native plants.

As the subdivision comes into focus, surveyors and engineers are working on the preliminary plat, which designates the finished legal layout, including the individual lots.

There will be 34 single-family home lots and six townhouses in North Village. An additional nine townhouses adjacent to but not in North Village will be developed at the same time, on North Savannah Place, for a total of 49 new residences.

Once grading and landscaping is complete, a final plat plan will be submitted to the county for approval. When that highly detailed plan is stamped, Windsor will be able to close on the 25 lots in North Village that have been sold so far, and buyers will be able to pull building permits and start construction of their homes.

Windsor is selling finished lots to buyers who are bringing their own architects and employing one of Windsor’s approved construction companies to build the dreamy designs the architects come up with.

Approved builders include Barth Construction of VB, LLC, Croom Construction Company, Huryn Construction, RCL Development, Inc. and Reilly Construction.

Many buyers are already deep into the design process, working with top architects from Vero Beach and around the country, including local designers Clem Schaub and Tom Hoos.

Hoos, who has designed more than 40 houses in Windsor, has three commissions in North Village, including one of the townhouse buildings and a spec home for Croom Construction.

“Builders were required to buy a lot and build a spec home in order to participate in the project,” Hoos told Vero Beach 32963. “Croom selected us to design their project.”

According to Windsor, “A new edition of the Windsor Architectural Code, created exclusively for the North Village, outlines the architectural and sustainable building practices that each home in the North Village is required to meet.

“Homes will honor Windsor’s Anglo-Caribbean heritage but will encourage a more modern, pared-down aesthetic. They will also be required to achieve a certification through the Passive House Institute US (Phius), which promotes high-performance building practices for energy efficiency and homeowner comfort.”

“We have more flexibility with the new code,” Hoos said. “They want second floor terraces with planters, almost like a garden village where the landscape comes up and becomes part of the house. They’re also trying to get more variety in the shape and forms of the homes.”

“The Anglo-Caribbean style is sustainable by its own nature, as it is designed to take every advantage of the sun and climate and orientation,” said Schaub, owner and principal, The Associates Studio in Vero Beach, who is designing a North Village house for one of his clients.

“Windsor is special in how it celebrates outdoor living. The North Village is land planned to integrate the village concept into a native Florida landscape setting. The new guidelines call for the architecture to marry with the land.

“I am inspired by Windsor’s desire to push ourselves to build even lighter on the land, to look for better ways to construct our building while keeping the knowledge learned from the past before air conditioning existed,” Schaub added.

The North Village site is a natural for ecologically inclined development. Its northern border adjoins Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, the first federal wildlife refuge, while its western border is defined by the Historic Jungle Trail, which continues to evoke Florida’s bucolic, pre-condo-tower past.

The western edge of the subdivision is a stone’s throw from the ecologically diverse Indian River Lagoon, while its eastern border is just a quarter mile from the Atlantic Ocean, and Windsor is making the most of the ecologically prime location.

“We are using nearly 100 different native plant species, more than 160,000 native plants in total, including over 1,300 palm trees and 500 oaks,” said project landscape architect Isaac Stein – all intended to restore the kind of native coastal hammock that occupied the barrier island before it was cleared for citrus production in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

“What excites me most is this deep integration of ecological health into the community’s founding principles,” said Windsor’s sustainability consultant Elizabeth Dowdle. “It’s rare to see a development that not only avoids harming the environment but actively restores it. Combined with a walkable design that promotes wellness and encourages outdoor living, the North Village redefines what sustainable neighborhoods can look like.”

The abundant native landscaping brings practical benefits as well as aesthetic and lifestyle advantages, according to Stein.

“From a practical standpoint, coastal hammocks provide resilience for coastal structures from wind events,” he said. “Live oaks and other native hardwood trees take the brunt of gusts during storms, and shade from the hammock creates a cooler and more comfortable setting. In addition, these are naturally maintained landscapes that minimize residents’ need for toxic chemicals often used for the standard mow-and-blow landscapes found across Vero.”

North Village was designed by architect and urban planner Andrés Duany, who designed the main Windsor community in the early 1990s and is known to island residents as the visionary behind Vero Beach’s impending Three Corners riverfront redevelopment project.

More than half of the subdivision will be devoted to parks, greenspaces and islands. There will be permanent art installations incorporated into the native landscaping, walking and riding trails, a kayak launch point, an observation tower that looks out over the expanse of Pelican Island Wildlife refuge, and a 14,000-square-foot fitness and wellness center with spa rooms that will be accessible to the entire Windsor community.

The subdivision, which was not part of the original Windsor master plan, has been a long time coming.

Windsor founder Galen Weston bought 52 acres of abandoned citrus land at the northern edge of the main Windsor development from Kennedy Groves in 1999, paying $2.8 million, according to county records.

The land remained fallow for 20 years, the sunbaked haunt of birds, reptiles and scurrying mammals until 2018, when Windsor presented an initial conceptual plan for North Village to county planners, outlining the basic shape and intent of the community.

There was some pushback by neighboring landowners, some internal rethinking that refined the environmental focus, and then COVID-19 came along, and the project remained in limbo for several more years.

It regained momentum in 2023, as the rest of Windsor approached buildout.

Site plan approval and planned development approval came through in November 2023, with the land development permit following in October 2024.

Site work began shortly afterward, in December 2024, and is nearly complete. Home construction will get underway next spring and Windsor expects the community to be built out by the end of 2027.

‘The North Village is an exciting demonstration of how neighborhoods can be both beautiful and life-supporting,” said Dowdle. “What truly sets it apart is its commitment to environmental restoration through a native plant landscape – a feature that benefits pollinators, birds, and the overall air and water quality.

“The restored landscape provides daily opportunities for residents to connect with nature – which research has shown to significantly reduce stress, improve mental health and enhance overall well-being. The North Village offers more than just homes – it offers a blueprint for sustainable, health-focused living that actively contributes to environmental regeneration.”

Remaining single-lots start at $1.2 million. Townhouse prices have not been announced.