Luxury enclave in Henderson mountains releases final homesites for sale

Ascaya, the luxury housing community blasted out of the mountains, has rolled out its last batch of homesites.

The development team for the wealthy Henderson enclave has released its final 58 lots, dubbed the Cloud Rock Collection. They range from 1.6 to 6.6 acres and are priced from $2 million to $18 million apiece, according to a news release.

Overall, Ascaya is planned for more than 300 homes total, and as of early May, it had 67 completed homes, 27 under construction or in the permitting process, and 20 in architectural review, the release stated.

The newly released homesites have the highest elevation in Ascaya and are on average the largest, said development lead Sam Brown.

Work crews reportedly drilled, blasted and moved around 15 million cubic yards of material in the McCullough Range to build the community. But the project, by Hong Kong developer Henry Cheng, was a glaring symbol of Southern Nevada’s real estate boom and bust, as it sat idle for years, without any homes on its cake-layered mountainside lots, after the economy crashed more than 15 years ago.

Cheng’s team halted sales efforts in 2009 but reopened in 2014 as the economy recovered.

Since then, the community has drawn buyers such as rock star Gene Simmons of Kiss and Raiders owner Mark Davis. The football boss purchased a 6-acre plot in Ascaya and set out to build a mansion that project plans showed would span around 15,000 square feet — and look strikingly similar to the Raiders’ practice facility in Henderson and even, in some ways, Allegiant Stadium.

Brown recently spoke with the Las Vegas Review-Journal about Ascaya. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

These are the final, developer-owned vacant homesites being released for sale in Ascaya?

Correct. We’re planning to build a spec house on one of them, but today, they’re 58 empty lots.

What is the minimum-size home that must be built in Ascaya?

On all streets except for one, it’s 4,500 square feet. It seems like a high minimum, but the average home in Ascaya is probably over 8,000 square feet. People coming to Ascaya who want to build a custom home want to build something with some size.

In the economy right now, interest rates are high, and recent stock-market volatility wiped out a lot of wealth. How does all of that affect sales of lots in Ascaya? I know you’re selling to wealthy people who don’t need a loan, but if rates are low, they may want to because the money’s cheap.

We cater to an affluent clientele, and if interest rates are, say, 4.5 percent versus I think around 6.5 percent today, that really means something to the vast majority of people. In Ascaya, most people are either paying cash or it’s a decision to finance, not necessarily a requirement based on the means that they have.

When the stock market is down or interest rates are high, the appetite to buy is not as great. When housing markets heat up, there’s a lot of activity, people feel flush, and they buy more. In the stock market, people are definitely concerned, but it’s been good to see a lot of the losses recouped.

In our core business, which is selling these homesites, people who buy them have to have a somewhat medium- to long-term horizon. You don’t buy a homesite and move in the next day. You hire an architect, design your dream house, and get it built, which is a two- to three-year process.

We’re seeing great activity on the lots. We’re also getting close to coming online with our condominium project, called The Canyon Residences. We think it allows Ascaya to reach a broader market. They’re 3,500 to 4,500 square feet, so I would refer them, in relativity, as compact.

Those are all attached units?

It has 51 units, 31 buildings, and a building has one or two condominiums in it. The single-story condominium building is a house; you have a driveway, a garage, a path to the front door. But you have the convenience of a condominium — the landscaping, the amenities, the hardscape, that’s all managed and maintained by an association.

What is the biggest house in Ascaya? Is it Mark Davis’? I have to imagine his is one of them.

His is up there. There’s another house that’s really big, and there’s an approved house that’s even larger, but it hasn’t started yet. We definitely foresee, especially with the new collection coming online, some could be even larger than that.

Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.