The North Hill at Staurolite, in Brasstown, NC ten minutes from the John C. Campbell Folk School is a 60 acre conservation by design community offering 40 acres of permanently protected green space through a conservation easement with the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. A residential community of 10 home sites, The North Hill at Staurolite offers a traditional village-like setting designed to protect natural resources and wildlife habitat and to encourage social interaction to facilitate community. The home sites, in sizes from 1.05 to 3 acres, are all south facing and offer mature hardwood, white pine forest or pasture edge settings, with wonderful long range mountain and pasture views.

Conservation by design is a concept refined by environmental planner, Randall Arendt that uses a land conservation approach to development. First, the important features and qualities of a site such as springs and streams, ridgetops, hardwood forests and viewsheds are identified and mapped and then aside to be common conservation spaces. The less sensitive areas then become the potential development areas used for roads and individual home sites. These are selected and arranged to take advantage of social interaction and open space features. Homes and building construction are governed by architectural and environmental guidelines.

The North Hill at Staurolite is a new community whose membership includes shared ownership and access to the 40+/- acres of protected common spaces, wells, roads and underground utilities. The protected common spaces include community garden areas, a picnic shelter, scattered viewing sites, a fire ring, viewing sites and over 1.5 miles of interconnected walking trails. Each home site is bordered by and connected to a series of pathway trails that offer options for access into and through both the neighborhood areas and natural conservation lands. Using both existing old road beds, abandoned fence lines and perceptible animal paths, the multiple trails vary in distance, view, terrain and level of exertion. In addition, The North Hill at Staurolite design includes an identified site for a future building that can include a kitchen, library, studios, or other identified community needs. Consensus will guide community decision making and reasonable covenants and restrictions will structure future choices and changes.

The community is located 2.5 hours from Atlanta and Athens, GA; Chattanooga and Knoxville, TN and Asheville, NC.