Macon Magazine

homes & gardens | by barbara Stinson Photography by danny gilleland Memories are what Tino and Alice Sheridan set out to make nine years ago when they bought into Little Creek Preserve in Jones County and decided it would be their home away from home. "We wanted to do something for our boys, something that they'd grow up enjoying," Tino Sheridan said. Their youngest son was 4, the oldest 7, when the Macon couple decided that, rather than a traditional second home located in a distant resort, they could make better memories for their sons closer by. They wanted to enjoy family togetherness only living and playing outdoors could bring. But they decided on a rather radical way of building memories by building a tipi. The iconic Plains Indian structure is much more familiar out west or in the movies than in the woods of Middle Georgia. "The kids were young and we were in the 'fort-building' stage," Tino said of their first weekends at Little Creek. "We'd go there on the weekends, we'd build forts -- we built several forts – and the boys loved playing in the creek." After their homemade forts didn't prove to have much staying power, Tino said, "One of my sons suggested a tipi. I said let me do some research." That led him to Nomadic Tipi Makers, an Oregon company that has been making and selling tipis for four decades. "They built the (leather) ones used in 'Dances with Wolves'," Tino said, noting the popular 1990 movie starring Kevin Costner. For cost reasons, most of the tipis they sell for private use are made out of a specially made duck canvas. (Tipi is the English spelling of the Lakota word meaning "dwelling." Teepee is the French spelling.) It offered the outdoor living experience the Sheridans couldn't resist. They ordered an authentic Sioux tipi and the memories began. The Preserve. Only a 40-minute drive from their north Macon house, the Little Creek wooded home sites and use of the surrounding preserve shared by the homeowners met the passions and interests of the whole family: being outside and enjoying nature for Tino and the boys, horses and trail riding for Alice. (She, along with seven other women in the development, board their horses on site.) Little Creek is made up of 40 fiveacre home sites and almost 2,000 surrounding acres designated in perpetuity as a preserve. And it is definitely isolated in the best sense of the word. You arrive at the gated entrance by turning off a dirt road that's off a dirt road. The development is the brainchild of Atlanta businessman David Frazier, borne from his aggravation and frustration with personal ownership of a smaller tract of land (about 125 acres) near Monticello. "Lack of security and control over what was happening to surrounding land", he said, led him to create what he couldn't find elsewhere: partners in owning a vast tract of land, owners who would be neighbors of one mind, with a sense of community and shared purpose of preservation, conservation and enjoyment of the land and its resources. His concept quickly caught hold and the ownership, limited to only those 40 purchasers, sold out quickly. The Sheridans were one of the first to buy in. "We (the LLC known as Little Creek Preserve) have about 2,000 acres under our management," Frazier said, with 200 acres in the 40 privately owned home sites, 1,200 preserve acres communally owned, and another 600 or so in leased land. About half of the home sites remain heavily wooded, with no permanent structure yet, like the Sheridans'. Frazier and others have built large, comfortable country houses as primary or second homes and enjoy the amenities that the jointly owned property provides. The canvas tipi is decorated on the inside with hand painted images of Alice's horses, her first mare, which is buried in a family pet cemetery on the property, and her current horse she rides several times a week at the preserve. april/MAy 2013macon magazine I 27

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