Home of the Week: Make Clint Eastwood Your Neighbor at This Elite, Sustainable Community in Northern California

Clint Eastwood wants to make your day. For the first time in a decade, the actor, director, and property developer, is releasing a select number of homesites at his elite private residential community Teháma, in Carmel, Calif.

As you might expect, it’ll cost a fistful of dollars for the privilege of building a dream home in this eco-friendly community, and calling Eastwood, who owns a home on the neighborhood, a neighbor.

Prices for the seven sites being made available start at $1.5 million for a 13-acre wooded lot. For a few dollars more—$6.25 million to be precise— you can get a spectacular hilltop site on 10 acres with expansive views of the Pacific.

Set in nearly 2,000 acres of Carmel Valley hillsides— 85 percent of which is preserved as untouched, open space—Teháma is made up of just 90 homesites, 60 of which have already been sold. These latest seven offerings are the first of the remaining 30 sites to go to market.

Since Eastwood began developing the property 40 years ago, his single-minded focus has been making it a model for sustainable development— and preserving the natural beauty of the land.

“Our goal from the beginning was to do our best to keep it like it is,” says Eastwood on the Teháma website. “I have always said about this land, that it’s like a good movie script: it’s great; now let’s not screw it up.”

To ensure its sustainability, he installed an on-site water source with a state-of-the-art filtration system. He also specified a reclamation plant that treats the community’s wastewater to produce reclaimed water to irrigate Teháma’s Jay Morrish-designed golf course.

While home designers are given creative freedom, there are strict Teháma design “guidelines” to assist buyers in building a home that blends into the surroundings and reflects local Carmel architecture.

According to Rick Ojeda of Compass Real Estate, the exclusive sales partner for Teháma, Eastwood’s love affair with the Carmel area began in 1951 when he was drafted in the army and stationed at nearby Ford Ord.

He later filmed and directed Play Misty For Me in the area, and named his production company Malpaso after a local creek. And who can forget that from 1986 to 1988, the Dirty Harry star was mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea?

For those who perhaps don’t want to develop a home from scratch, right now there’s a listing for 15 Alta Madera, a four-bedroom, five-bath 7,800-square-foot home set on 6.1 acres within Teháma. Asking price: $10.5 million.

Or you could rent. A sprawling 14,000-square-foot home at 46 Teháma, that has eight bedrooms and 8.5 baths, is currently available for $69,000 a month, which may seem steep, but next to renting Kevin Costner’s Aspen home, it feels entirely reasonable.

With so few properties available at Teháma, maybe you need to acquire one any which way you can.