Custom Homes in Fair Oaks Ranch — From a Working Ranch to the Hill Country's Most Complete Community
Twenty-seven miles northwest of San Antonio. An incorporated city spanning three counties, built on a 5,000-acre ranch, with two championship golf courses, eleven miles of trails, and room to build a custom home on acreage that still feels like the Hill Country.
A 5,000-Acre Ranch Became a City
In the 1930s, Ralph Fair Sr. — an oilman and cattleman from California — assembled 5,000 acres of Hill Country terrain northwest of San Antonio and built a working ranch. He raised racehorses, then shifted to cattle and developed a nationally recognized Hereford breeding program. The ranch’s 14,000-square-foot main house sat on a hilltop surrounded by live oaks and the rolling terrain of Cibolo Creek.
After Ralph and Dorothy Fair’s deaths in the late 1960s, the family opened portions of the ranch for residential development. They sold five-acre and ten-acre parcels and formed a homeowners’ association in 1975. The ranch house became the Fair Oaks Ranch Golf and Country Club in 1978. By the mid-1980s, the growing community incorporated — first as two separate cities, Fair Oaks North and Fair Oaks South, then merged into a single city on January 21, 1988. Today, Fair Oaks Ranch is a city of approximately 12,000 residents spread across 8.5 square miles in three counties — Bexar, Comal, and Kendall.
The planning that shaped Fair Oaks Ranch from a single ownership is still visible in the community’s character. The roads follow the terrain rather than a suburban grid. Mature oaks that predated the development have been preserved throughout. And the scale of the lots — even in the newer sections — maintains the sense of space that the original ranchettes established five decades ago.
From Golf-Course Homesites to Ten-Acre Estates
Golf-Course and Country Club Properties
The original sections of Fair Oaks Ranch surround the country club and its two golf courses — the Live Oak Course and the Blackjack Course. Lots here tend to be smaller by Hill Country standards, typically under two acres, with views of the fairways and direct access to the club’s amenities: golf, tennis, pickleball, pools, fitness, and dining. These properties appeal to buyers who want the convenience of country-club living with the architectural quality of a custom home.
Gated Estate Communities
Newer developments within Fair Oaks Ranch, including communities like Elkhorn Ridge, Stone Creek Ranch, Cibolo Ridge Estates, and Setterfeld Estates, offer gated privacy with one-to-five-acre lots surrounded by mature oaks and Hill Country terrain. These communities typically have architectural guidelines that ensure a consistent standard of design and construction quality. Paradise is familiar with the review processes in each.
Large Acreage Properties
At the northern and western edges of the city — particularly in the Kendall County and Comal County portions — larger parcels of five to ten or more acres are available. Some of these properties carry agricultural tax exemptions and support equestrian use. The terrain on these lots is genuine Hill Country: rolling limestone hills, creek crossings, and long-distance views. Building on these properties involves the same site-evaluation and construction considerations that Paradise manages throughout the region.
An Incorporated City — With Room to Design
Fair Oaks Ranch is an incorporated city, which means building here involves city permitting and inspections. Paradise is experienced with this process — it is similar to the municipal frameworks in Boerne and New Braunfels, and Turner navigates it routinely.
What makes Fair Oaks Ranch unusual among incorporated cities is that it has never adopted a formal zoning ordinance. A draft was prepared in the 2000s but was never enacted. This means the city does not impose zoning-based restrictions on what can be built where — the regulatory framework comes primarily from the city’s building codes, the specific subdivision’s deed restrictions, and any HOA or architectural committee requirements that apply to the lot.
Water and sewer service within the city is generally provided by municipal infrastructure or the Fair Oaks Ranch Utility District, rather than the well-and-septic model that prevails in unincorporated Hill Country communities. This is a practical advantage for buyers accustomed to municipal services, and it simplifies one aspect of the building process.
The city’s three-county geography means that property tax rates, school district assignments, and some county-level services vary depending on exactly where the lot is located within the city limits. Turner can help buyers understand these distinctions during the lot-evaluation process.
We wanted the golf and the country club, but we also wanted acreage and privacy — and we wanted a home that felt like it was designed for us, not pulled from a model lineup. Turner understood that from the first conversation. The house he built for us does justice to the lot and the community.
Your Fair Oaks Ranch Home Starts with a Conversation
Whether you are building on a golf-course lot or a ten-acre estate, Turner brings the same personal attention and 55 years of construction experience to every project.