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Steve Nygren didn’t set out to be a developer, much less the unofficial king of a growing sustainable kingdom. “I had sold my hospitality company and we retired to the country to raise our kids and do what we wanted to. I was lucky enough to do that,” he says.

When he realized there was an opportunity to live not far from the urban sprawl (with easy access to the rest of the world via the Atlanta airport) but far enough to feel a world away, he jumped at the opportunity to buy farmland on the edge of Atlanta. Developers weren’t interested at the time, he says, because the area had no schools, no amenities. At the turn of the 21st century, land was cheap. “In 2000 it became obvious that development was headed our way because it was the last available land in metro Atlanta,” Nygren says. “I started buying land and, at 900 acres, I couldn’t keep doing that.” He started to get others involved.

What started simply as his own home is now a vast neighborhood focused on well-being. Nearly two decades after the Nygren family moved, Serenbe has become a highly sought-after walkable community with instant forest access, more than 1,000 residents, and a bustling social calendar. Serenbe the community officially broke ground with its first house in 2004, and Nygren and his team filed to make the area a city—Chattahoochee Hills—in 2007. They even have their own school with more than 200 students enrolled. “More than 300 kids live at Serenbe—not one recorded case of asthma,” Nygren says of the health benefits of living in nature.

gb&d recently spent a weekend on the grounds, complete with neighborhood tour via golf cart and meditative walk through the trees. We marveled as we saw kids bounce on an in-ground trampoline and run barefoot through pedestrian-friendly streets; parents grabbed a coffee at the coffee shop and played tennis. There seemed to be much to do—at your own speed—at Serenbe.

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