Story by Maria Scinto

Photos by Brian Lewis

The Arora Hills master-planned community is one of Clarksburg's newer developments, but it has an old-fashioned feel, offering the best of small-town living in a convenient location just three miles off of Interstate 270.

This is a community that could best be described as family-oriented, with playgrounds, parks, bike paths, clubhouse and swimming pool. In fact, plans for future development include a middle school located within the community – although local children might be a bit more excited by the news that a second pool is also planned to be built. This second pool (which is to be an indoor facility), along with several baseball fields, tennis courts and basketball courts, will be provided by the Maryland National Park and Planning Commission.

Arora Hills consists of five separate neighborhoods consisting of single-family homes and townhomes built by Beazer, K. Hovnanian and Ryan Homes. Neighborhoods 1 and 2 are completely occupied, but new homes are still available in neighborhoods 3 and 4. Neighborhood 5 has yet to be completed, as has a commercial property planned by another developer.

One of the community's most attractive features, however, is that it was deliberately planned to provide a “back-to-nature” feel, featuring over 200 acres of preserved open space and three streams. In fact, the community slogan is “Designed by nature. Built by artists.”

Arora Hills developer Alan Stackman agrees: “We wanted people to not only have a beautiful home to live in, but a wonderful community to come home to.”

Outdoor enthusiasts will find much to enjoy in the local area, as well. Just across Skylark Road from the Arora Hills development lies the 290-acre Ovid Hazen Wells Park, offering a playground, baseball fields, soccer fields, picnic shelters, bike paths, and plenty of room for dogs and kids to run and play.

The Clarksburg area offers a number of other nearby parks and recreational areas, including the Clarksburg Neighborhood Park, featuring lighted tennis courts and basketball courts; Kings Local Park, with its softball field and pond; and Little Bennett Regional Park, which offers camping, nature programs, and an 18-hole golf course. Nearby Butler's Orchard is also a popular excursion with the kids, who enjoy picking strawberries in the summertime and apples and pumpkins in the fall.

Perhaps one of the nicest things you can do in Arora Hills is to get to know your neighbors, which shouldn't be too hard to do in such a friendly community.

Fernando Herboso, of Herboso & Associates Realtors, has himself owned a home in Arora Hills in addition to having brokered the sale of a number of these homes. He praised the community's closeness, as well as its natural beauty, and said that “all the families love the fact that the [Ovid Hazen Wells] park is right next door...everyone takes advantage of the park.”

He said that all the community needs is a little commercial development, perhaps a movie theater and some restaurants, and it will become the kind of place families never need (or want) to leave.

While the commercial development is still in the planning stage, Arora Hills residents currently have the opportunity to enjoy outdoor movies on summer evenings shown on a big screen in the park. Year-round fun includes community get-togethers and holiday celebrations, many of these held at the new clubhouse, as well as picnics, ballgames and walks in the woods.

Indeed, Arora Hills, as the Web site promises, does seem to offer “the perfect Maryland lifestyle.”