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Hidden Valley
Airpark Association now owns a total of 300 acres--- of which about 110 acres
is green space containing a 3,100-foot-long paved entrance road with woods on
one side and a pasture on the other side.
As of 2/1/2010 we have a total of 130 residential lots for homes/hangars,
about 81 with completed homes/hangars on them and 4 homes under construction.
Sometimes our members have homes or lots for sale.
Hidden Valley Airpark is 40 years old, and about half of the existing homes
were built in the last 20 years. The paved runway has been lengthened to
about 2,650 feet with a 500' sod overrun on the South. The FAA designator is
5TX0. (The last character is Zero, not the letter O).
Planes and cars share the same wide, paved, streets/taxiways, and the
Association also has a separate area where members can lease a hangar site
and build their own hangar (or buy an existing one) if they do not want a
hangar at their home site.
The annual lease rate in this Association-owned hangar area is the property
taxes the Association is billed for the leasehold improvements plus any
common water usage percentage. The Member constructs (or buys) the leasehold
improvements (the hangar) on the leased hangar site and can resell the hangar
to another member.
All of our residential lots are over one acre, with the average being about
1.2-acres. Our restrictive covenants require residences to have at least 1800
square feet of living space, but most are larger. Our member's homes range in
value from about $250,000 to $850,000 with the average home probably worth
about $375,000.
In addition to owning their individual 1+ acre residential lot, each HVAA
member has access to approximately 175 acres of common property, including
the runway, taxiways, streets and over 110 acres of green space, woods,
pasture, and other open areas.
The area surrounding the Airpark from WNW to NE is all uninhabited Corps of
Engineers property bordering 29,000-acre Lewisville Lake, an area that is
also heavily wooded and used by many members for hiking/biking trails or
horseback riding. Members are charged $5 a month if they wish to keep a horse
in Hidden Valley Airpark's 25-acre horse pasture.
We are located in the town of Shady Shores, Texas which lies along and just
west of Lewisville Lake. We are 1-1/2 miles east of Interstate Highway I-35E
at Exit 461 (Shady Shores Road). The nearest larger city is Denton which is
about 4 miles North. We are about 25 to 35 minutes driving time from downtown
Dallas, Fort Worth or DFW International Airport, which is 18 nm due South.
Texas governments are funded primarily by sales and property tax and we have
no state or local income tax. Our members pay monthly dues of $125 which pay
for maintaining our network of private paved roads/taxiways, runway, the
property taxes on the runway, taxiways, other Association-owned property,
airport liability insurance, and other Association expenses.
In 1984, the membership bought 72 acres directly South of our North-South
runway in order to keep it from being developed into high-density housing.
That property has been left essentially undeveloped, and contains a fenced
25-acre horse pasture available to our member families for $5 a month per
horse.
In 1997, the membership voted to buy 24.3 more acres of woodland just
Southeast of our runway and adjacent to the 72-acres purchased in 1984.
Members voted to put 5 existing residential lots on the market in order to
pay for this newly-acquired land, and 2 new lots were also platted and sold
to pay for the additional land and to extend the runway.
In 2000, we completed the platting of 20 new wooded home sites, again each
more than an acre in size with plenty of room for home and hangar. Even
before completing the installation of streets, water, gas, electricity and
telephone services to that new subdivision (Hidden Valley Airpark Phase-III),
we were able to trade 8 of the 20 new lots for an additional 41-acre tract
(Phase IV) South and East of the land previously purchased -- to further
extend our boundaries and protect our approaches. This was accomplished via
an IRS Section 1031 tax-free exchange.
In 2008, we
acquired about 28 acres to the east and added 23 more home sites. As of
1/1/2010, two new homes are under construction in Phase V.
If you are interested in more information, just email us with your
mailing address and we will send you a package that includes an aerial photo
of Hidden Valley Airpark, pictures of some of our homes, plats showing the
available lots and homes, plus additional information on the airpark, its
members and the surrounding area.
We would enjoy hosting your visit at any time. If you come in your own plane,
your bird would feel right at home here with every vintage and model of
aircraft from several Cubs, Champs, Pitts, Christian Eagle, Citabrias,
Lancairs, Glassaires, RV's, Skybolts, a Tailwind, a Stemme Motorglider, a
couple Maule's and the usual assortment of Wichita products including
Travellaires, Barons, a Cessna 195, various Pipers, 3 or 4 Cessna 310's,
JetProp, MU-2, and a couple Twin-Comanche’s.
In case the weather is bad, Denton Municipal Airport (KDTO) is 8 miles WNW of
the airpark and has ILS, GPS and NDB approaches to its 6,000-foot runway.
A number of our members are builders. We have hosted fly-in's for several EAA
Chapters, and those visitors toured a half-dozen member's construction
projects including a 3/4-scale P-51, a Subaru-powered T-18, an Adventurer
4-place Amphibian, a Quickie 200, several Pitts, a restoration of a Cessna
195, a Staggerwing Beech project, an Aerosport SCAMP Biplane, a Glasair, a
Lancair and probably others that I have forgotten. A Van's RV-7 project was
recently completed in a member's hangar.
The logical next step is to come see for yourself. I suggest you call before
coming to make sure someone is here to host your visit-- I am retired and
around most of the time. If I am not here, call Gerald Bilger at 940-367-3735
or 940-367-3742, he will also be happy to show you around Hidden Valley
Airpark or just come out and chat with any one of our members you find.
Sincerely,
Howard Walrath, EAA Life Member 93116
owner of RV-6A N55HW Flying 430 hours
Tel: 940-321-5758
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