What’s Neely Ranch?

Neely Ranch Streetscape

Morrison Ranch is unique, with the tree-lined streets and two rail fences announcing a different kind of community. But there is another community in Gilbert with tree-lined streets and two rail fences, and it looks very similar. That would be because it was designed by the same folks that designed Morrison Ranch.

Neely Ranch is located at the northeast corner of Cooper and Elliot, and that 80 acre piece of ground is where the Mister and Bias For Action grew up. Their parents still live there in their original home in the middle of the community. Bias For Action and an older brother also have homes in the excepted 8 acres. Neely Ranch was the first residential project in which the Mister exerted some influence. Neely is his mother’s maiden name, and there are several other communities with Neely in the name; all those fields were once farmed by various members of her family.

The "berms" of grass conceal the street behind

The Mister and The Sixth Man comprised the 2-man office that designed Neely Ranch. One of the most obvious differences between Neely and Morrison Ranches is the berms at Neely Ranch. A berm is the word for a mound of earth, and it is an agricultural concept. We use berms in farming to keep the water going where we want it to go, creating channels or a sort of a dam. The dual purpose for the berms along the arterial roads of Neely Ranch are first for noise reduction, and secondly to soften the view of the inside streets. Between the rise of earth and the trees planted there, the noise that comes from the busy streets is somewhat minimized. And as you drive along Cooper or Elliot and look over at Neely Ranch, you notice the trees and the grass, not the streets behind them. But there are some problems with the berms. Because they are situated between the sidewalk and the fence, they ended up having to be very steep, and that makes them hard to maintain as well as a little more stark than we wanted. Then, they had to be reduced or cut down at intersections for ease of viewing traffic. Also, because the power lines along Elliot are 69kv lines, they are terribly expensive to bury, so we left them above ground. Now I see that the trees are growing up to reach those lines, and will most likely be chopped off at the top to remain clear, and that definitely isn’t the picture we intended.

So when it came time to design Morrison Ranch, we decided the berms weren’t worth the effort.

The other notable difference between Neely Ranch and Morrison Ranch is the size. Neely Ranch consists of this one 80 acre piece of ground, and so it stands in fairly stark contrast to the communities that surround it (though the Seven Eleven across the street did agree to coordinate their landscaping to match).

That’s a start; I’ll fill in some more detail about Neely Ranch tomorrow.