Woodland · The Inland Woods
Elsmoor
02
properties listed · ELS · desk since 2009
Elsmoor is a forest with houses in it rather than a suburb with trees. The plots are large, the canopy is high, and from the road you generally see nothing at all.
It became an architects' district almost by accident. A cooperative bought two hundred hectares in the early nineties, drew a plot plan with no building line and a strict height limit, and sold the plots to people who wanted to build. Thirty years on, the results are the reason buyers come.
The trade-off is practical. Everything is by car, the sand drains fast but the tracks need maintaining, and the canopy means that houses here are designed around what light there is rather than around a view.
What it is actually like
- Plots average just over half a hectare, and the height limit is two storeys plus a flat roof terrace.
- No street lighting anywhere in the cooperative area, by covenant. It is genuinely dark at night.
- Fibre reached the whole district in 2019; this is now a commuter market as much as a weekend one.
- Tree felling above 20 cm trunk diameter needs the cooperative's consent, which is not automatic.
Journey times
- Elsmoor halt
- 9 min by car
- Sablon
- 42 min by car, 51 min by rail
- Airport
- 35 min by car
- Lake Corvane
- 28 min by car
What sells and what sits
Houses built for the plot sell within weeks. Houses dropped onto the plot from a catalogue sit for a year. The difference is visible from the first photograph, which is why we take our time over them.
The covenant
It is short, it is enforced, and it is the reason the district still looks like itself. We give every buyer a copy before an offer, not after.
On the register in Elsmoor
2 properties
Everything we currently hold in this market.
The whole register
The desk
Who holds this market
Nils Aubrey
Partner · Elsmoor and country houses
Sells houses that were designed for their plot, and is straightforward about the ones that were not.
Paz Carrera
Head of Lettings
Runs the lettings book across three markets and refuses short lets, which is why the book is small and the tenancies are long.