Selling a way of life, not a plot of land
Brand Strategy
Visual Identity
Website Design
Industry
Real Estate
Collaborator
Studio Sanderson
Ellen and Ethan Leake owned a 600-acre timber forest outside Oxford, Mississippi, set around three lakes. The lumber contractors who surveyed it judged it too beautiful to fell. The Leakes wanted to turn it into 36 homes for people seeking a simpler life in nature, and brought in Studio Sanderson and me to make that vision something people could believe in.
Lots Sold
Now a Destination for food and art events
The challenge
The land was extraordinary, but it wasn’t yet a place. There was no community, no history, and no reason for buyers to picture themselves there. We had to persuade people to commit to a new way of living, in a location many of them had never considered.
The insight
The people this would appeal to didn’t want to own land so much as look after it. That shifted the story from property to stewardship: living lightly on the land, and leaving only what’s worth preserving. Studio Sanderson captured it in a guiding mantra, “Stewards for Better”.
The solution
The identity pairs the modernity of the architecture with a sense of adventure. Every lot sits between forest and lake with only natural boundaries, and that same restraint shaped every touchpoint, down to signage cut from local stone. We clarified the offer and the sales story, built a website the owners could run themselves, and set up an in-house marketing system and team to carry it forward.