Builder created his own hidden gem in heart of Granite Bay, starting with a pond
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- A 2½-acre Granite Bay estate with a private pond and immense pool is for sale.
- The single-story main house is 6,245 square feet and was built by Higgins Construction.
- The property is offered for sale for around $5.9 million and has gated dual entrances.
When John Higgins first walked the Granite Bay lot, it wasn’t the kind of property that stops you in your tracks — at least not yet.
The land was rough and raw. There was no house, no pool, no pond, not even utilities.
“They wanted like 134, which sounds cheap at the time, fair market,” Higgins recalls of the original $134,000 asking price. “But it didn’t have sewer, didn’t have water, didn’t have power, didn’t have gas.”
Another buyer beat them to it, and Higgins and his wife, Julie, moved on.
Then the agent called: the deal had fallen through. Julie took one more look at the lot and made the decision that would shape the next three decades of their lives.
“She goes, ‘I think I want it,’” Higgins said.
Today, that once-empty parcel has become one of the most unique properties in the upscale Sacramento suburb: a long, sprawling 2½-acre estate with a large private pond, mature landscaping decades in the making, an immense pool, and a 6,245-square-foot single-story main house.
The residence at 5183 Chelshire Downs Road is for sale for about $5.9 million.
“This estate is a masterpiece from the mature grounds developed over 20 years to the incredible entertainment, business, and enjoyment opportunities offered by this one-of-a-kind property,” the property listing states.
John Higgins owns Higgins Construction, a company known for high-end work in Granite Bay neighborhoods like Treelake, Wexford and Serrano, including Street of Dreams show homes. When he started building the Chelshire Downs home in 2006, he went all in on quality: Gladding McBean clay tile roofing, 3,000-square-feet of covered porches throughout, heavy timber beams and rafters and hand-crafted exterior and interior doors.
The parcel includes a second address with direct street access to the property’s 3,000-square-foot shop, 1,850-square-foot office, and a 1,590-square-foot unfinished apartment.
The main home was designed around an enchanting central courtyard with a bubbling water feature. Off the courtyard, a guest suite has its own separate entrance, with a full bathroom and kitchenette.
The chef’s kitchen spotlights top-of-the-line stainless steel appliances, limestone counters, granite islands and custom cabinetry. The open kitchen flows into a spacious dining area, great room and game-room space — all with views and access to an awe-inspiring yard. Stained concrete and radiant-heat floors run throughout.
Granite Bay is 24 miles northeast of Sacramento. Despite the location in central Granite Bay, which is close to schools and cart-riding distance from the community’s golf club, many locals don’t realize Higgins’ gem is even there.
‘Secret little garden’
“You would not even know that this property exists in this part of town,” listing agent Kendra Bishop of The Bishop Group with Coldwell Banker said. “No one knows. People are like, ‘Wait, what? It’s such a secret little garden.’”
Outdoors, the property reads like a private resort: a shady path meanders around the pond, swim-up bar seats in the pool await, the landscaping is well-tended, attractive boulders and water features are scattered throughout. The outdoor kitchen brings “indoor” amenities poolside — built-in barbecue, double ovens, dishwasher, even a deep fryer — turning summer into a long season of entertaining.
Culinarians will find spacious, raised-concrete garden beds around the corner near the workshop.
The enormous pond wasn’t a finishing touch. It was the foundation, Higgins said. Long before concrete was poured for the house, Higgins started digging — literally.
“We started with the pond,” he said. “In ’96, maybe, I dug the pond? I had a pond expert come out. I said, ‘Hey, can I have a pond here?’ We have drainage that comes through.”
He wasn’t aiming for a small decorative feature. He wanted a pond that could anchor the property — something big enough to feel like a private lake. The excavation created a mountain of clay soil — an inconvenience for most people, but a building block for a contractor who understood the site’s potential.
“We ended up with all this dirt,” Higgins said. “It was great for the pond because it’s like a clay liner — it sits in there.”
He used the excess soil to shape a berm for privacy along a property line, striking a deal with a neighbor who needed access to the road.
“I said, ‘I’ll give you a sliver of mine if I can put dirt in between us, and we’ll create some privacy,’” Higgins said. “When you come in, you really don’t see (the neighbor)]; it’s six-foot, eight-foot. We got rid of the dirt, didn’t have to haul it off, created privacy, and my kids loved it for their motorcycle.”
Over time, the pond filled with bass and bluegill and became a magnet for wildlife — blue herons, cranes, geese, mallards, and the kind of nighttime soundtrack that makes the place feel far removed from suburbia.
Building for themselves
By the early 2000s, Higgins and his wife were ready to build for themselves. Construction began in 2004.
The result: a roughly 6,200-square-foot single-story home with six bedrooms and six bathrooms, including the detached casita for guests or extended family. The layout was driven by a practical reality —four kids and a desire for spaces that actually get used.
“We have four kids, so we designed it more kid-friendly,” Higgins said. “It looks massive with the covered porches, but it’s really a ranch-style house with blown-up rooms.”
In marketing terms, the home is designed to get the most out of an indoor-outdoor flow. Main living spaces open to the back patio and pull the outdoors in.
The bedroom wing includes a secluded primary suite with a spa-like bathroom. A wide, skylight-lit hall leads to four additional bedrooms, two Jack-and-Jill bathrooms and a large laundry and sewing room where kids can pile up their dirty clothes.
Bishop, who is co-listing the place with Kelly McGhee of Coldwell Banker, said the appeal of the home is a combination of scale and livability — particularly because it’s all on one level.
“The single-story flow is ahead of its time because it’s still such a desirable floor plan,” she said. “It’s very homey, but it’s a very large single story.”
Arizona inspiration
Though the property sits a short golf cart trip from Granite Bay Golf Club, Higgins says the home’s design DNA came from the Arizona desert. He discovered an architect in Phoenix and toured work at Superstition Mountain, bringing those influences back to California — massive timbers, strong lines and high-touch details.
“They were way ahead of California,” Higgins said. “Basically I copied everything from that theme.”
Deep, covered patios shade the home in the summer, helping keep temperatures manageable when the region hits triple digits. Higgins also points to craftsmanship you can see and feel — from real, functional shutters to heavy materials that are costly to replicate today.
“There is so much to this house,” Bishop said. “We don’t find builds like this anymore. It doesn’t happen like this.”
Outfitted for the serious hobbyist
The commodious workshop and office edifice is outfitted for serious hobbyists and owners with big toys: an extra-tall roll-up door, a full bathroom, mezzanine storage, washer/dryer hookups — and even an indoor basketball hoop. This is where serious work on the compound gets done.
Adjacent to it, the office building has a flexible layout that can serve business owners or function more like guest accommodations, depending on a buyer’s needs. Above it sits the unfinished apartment space, a blank canvas for additional bedrooms, a studio or storage.
Bishop sees the back buildings and the flat acreage as a rare combination in this specific location of Placer County.
“I think the beauty of it is having this space and having the opportunity to have this in such a central part of Granite Bay … it’s a very unique opportunity,” she said. “You’d have to be out in the other side of Douglas or out in Loomis to get this much space and to get it this flat and usable, and to have this much potential … and your kids can bike in and walk to the schools. You can get to the golf course, like that is unheard of for this type of space.”
Asked what he’ll miss most, Higgins doesn’t start with square footage or finishes. He starts with the setting.
“Like I said, the pond, the nature, that comes in, and you kind of take it for granted, you see ducks and frogs,” he said. “Well, that’s one, and then privacy is two. Look at how peaceful. I’ll sit out here right in that chair and throw for the dogs. And the patio, I really like the patio., that’s an oasis.”
Forever home
The estate is gated and can be accessed from both Chelshire Downs Road (the main entrance) and Oak Creek Place (a business entrance), a setup that quietly reinforces how much this property was designed to work in real life — not just photograph well.
For Higgins, leaving the home he built to be his forever place isn’t simple. But with three of his four children now clustered near Reno, he’s thinking about semi-retirement and a new chapter.
For the next owner, that decision opens a rare door: a builder’s own Granite Bay masterpiece — decades in the making — tucked out of sight in the middle of town, with the kind of space and privacy most buyers assume they’ll only find much farther out.
