New North Carolina Asteria Storyliving by Disney Community
Storyliving by Disney has announced plans for Asteria, a new residential community located near Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This shares full details of the news, and commentary about how it compares with the residential communities near Walt Disney World in Florida and in Southern California.
Let’s start with the press release. According to Storyliving by Disney, the Asteria planned community is inspired by the spirit of discovery and is being designed to encourage exploration of the region’s natural beauty and spark life-long learning. The Asteria community is in the beginning stages of planning with Walt Disney Imagineering and DMB Development. Homes in the community will be built by select homebuilders with sales anticipated to begin by 2027.
“The announcement of the Asteria community builds upon strong initial interest for our first Storyliving by Disney community in California and will expand Disney-branded communities to the East Coast,” said Claire Bilby, senior vice president and general manager of Disney Signature Experiences Emerging Businesses. “Our team has been working closely with Disney Imagineers to develop a unique vision for this project inspired by Walt Disney’s innate curiosity and North Carolina’s spirit of discovery.”
The Asteria community will come to life on 1,500 acres in the heart of North Carolina’s picturesque Chatham County. Ideally situated in the town of Pittsboro, residents will have access to metropolitan amenities with the charm of a small town. Plans call for more than 4,000 residential units including single-family and multi-family homes, with some home sites specifically designated for 55+ adults. The Asteria community will be part of the larger, award-winning Chatham Park master-planned community by Preston Development Company, co-founded by Julian “Bubba” Rawl and Tim Smith.
“For nearly 15 years, Chatham Park has set the standard for innovative growth and thoughtful planning. We feel an extraordinary sense of responsibility to our residents and the broader community with this project and we’re incredibly fortunate to work with Disney, DMB Development and homebuilders to create something truly special,” said Rawl.
The Asteria community will offer future residents a unique lifestyle thanks to distinctive Disney placemaking. A range of home styles will line quaint streets leading to a mix of community amenities designed to showcase the area’s surrounding natural beauty. Aligning with Chatham Park’s commitment to open green space and to encourage exploration, the community will feature acres of neighborhood parks and miles of beautiful walking and biking trails where residents can connect with the outdoors.
Asteria community homeowners will become part of a club with amenities planned to include a wellness and recreation center, restaurant, sport courts, swimming pools, community garden and plenty of outdoor space for lawn games, events and fire pits. The club will feature enrichment programming only Disney can deliver. Some of the experiences under consideration include storytelling dinners inspired by Disney tales, lessons with Disney artists and family fun days with Disney-themed activities.
“We’re looking forward to collaborating with Disney to bring another Storyliving by Disney community to life,” said DMB Development CEO Brent Herrington. “Just as the desert setting inspired our teams with the Cotino community, North Carolina’s rich landscape and history is at the heart of our initial planning work with Walt Disney Imagineering. We’ve got a lot of great ideas to showcase the beauty of this area.”
The team at Walt Disney Imagineering has spent significant time researching, visiting, and immersing themselves in the region to develop the Asteria community’s unique theme. Influenced by the nearby universities in the famed Research Triangle, the community is envisioned as a campus of discovery – a place for exploring and learning.
“We had an incredible time developing the creative brand and story for Asteria, the new Storyliving by Disney community,” said Shawn Montague, site portfolio executive, Walt Disney Imagineering. “We chose the community’s name to pay homage to the native North Carolina aster flower. The flower is also a namesake of the Greek goddess Asteria whose tears of stardust fell to the Earth and sprouted the first aster flowers. We thought it was a beautiful way to honor North Carolina’s natural beauty from the Earth to the sky, in our campus of discovery.”
The Asteria community is the second announced Storyliving by Disney community in the U.S. following the Cotino community, which is currently under development in Rancho Mirage, California. Pre-sales appointments for home-buying in the Cotino community are now underway. Additional Storyliving by Disney locations are under exploration.
Vibrant Storyliving by Disney new-home communities will be infused with the company’s special brand of magic. Each community is thoughtfully designed with creative guidance from Disney Imagineers who take inspiration from the region’s history, community and landscape to create a one-of-a-kind place that inspires residents to write their next chapter. The legendary Disney placemaking and attention to detail within each community are complemented by renowned guest service delivered by Disney cast members.
Asteria, a Storyliving by Disney community, is in the very early stages of planning. Additional information including details on future homes in the community will be released as they become available. Those interested in more information or in joining the community’s email list can visit www.storylivingbydisney.com/asteria.
Our Commentary
You’ve might’ve noticed that we haven’t covered all of the updates on Storyliving by Disney since the original Cotino announcement. That was nearly 2 years ago, and since then, they’ve shared house designs and a look at the common spaces. Probably more than that, I’m not sure. Storyliving also had a booth at last year’s D23 Expo.
We haven’t covered it because, frankly, none of it has been particularly interesting to us. And we’re also guessing that it’s not interesting or relevant to many of you, once you get past the surface-level outrage and/or “this is cool.” These are small high-end housing developments, and I’d hazard a guess that the vast majority of you are not prospective buyers. That’s not any sort of judgment–it’s simply a numbers game.
One thing I would caution against is critiquing this on the basis of Disney “investing” resources into Storyliving while only talking about blue sky plans that “maybe” they’ll build for the theme parks. Based on the wording of this and other Storyliving announcements, it’s pretty safe to assume that Disney is not spending any significant sums on Asteria.
Much more likely is that they’re being paid a licensing fee, and for Imagineering design and consulting. If anything, Storyliving by Disney could be viewed as a means of funding future Parks & Resorts expansion (and something to keep Imagineers occupied in the meantime before those projects kick into high gear).
It’s an imperfect comparison, but Storyliving by Disney probably is somewhat akin to Tokyo Disney Resort–someone else is footing the bill, and Disney is paid royalties and licensing, and for Imagineering’s designs, among other things.
I don’t have a tremendous amount of insight to offer with regard to Asteria, specifically. When it came to Cotino, at least we could offer some commentary about the area, thanks to living in Southern California and having extensive experience visiting the Palm Springs area. Aside from driving the Blue Ridge Parkway and spending time in Asheville and Cherokee while visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park, my experience with and knowledge of North Carolina is extremely limited.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this housing development and the surrounding area is nothing like a National Park gateway town (at least, I sure hope not…Cherokee is really something). I will say that I’ve heard good things about North Carolina, none of which is the least bit surprising given my experiences with the state’s natural beauty.
I’ve also had the barbecue, which is fantastic. North Carolinians are going to hate me for saying this, but everywhere has good BBQ. There is no such thing as a bad “version” of barbecue. Variety is the spice of life, and regional twists should be celebrated, not scorned. This goes for all food, too. There’s no bad style of pizza, burritos, sandwiches, or whatever other foods people get irrationally protective of. But this is a post about a planned community, not barbecue. (Perhaps it should be about BBQ–might be more interesting!)
My sentiment here is more or less the same as it was with Cotino. While some specifics differ, the operative question is: what does the Walt Disney Company really bring to the table when it comes to residential design and community planning?
Don’t get me wrong, I love many of the newer additions to the parks. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Cars Land, World of Frozen, Fantasy Springs, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure plus the Streets of Paris, and the Beauty and the Beast area in Tokyo all look fantastic. As do many new attractions and the placemaking around them.
Those are poor comparisons, though, as they’re elaborate additions with Imagineering’s top tier talent and incredibly big budgets behind them. Storyliving by Disney won’t be anything like those new lands and areas. If it were, it would be immensely unprofitable or astronomically priced due to bloated budgets. (Take whatever you think these homes should cost based on their location and the Disney-brand surcharge, and double or triple it.)
Instead, look at the regular restaurants, retail and public spaces Disney has done in the last several years. Spaces like Disney Springs at Walt Disney World, Downtown Disney at Disneyland, or even the center of EPCOT. Heck, look at the Disney Vacation Club additions–those towers are a good example of budgets having to stay in check. When looking at those, I see nothing that a high-end design firm couldn’t accomplish. They might be nice spaces, but they did not require the expertise or talent of Walt Disney Imagineering.
Again, I know nothing about architecture in North Carolina, but I’m guessing they have historic homes and unique style. It may not be to the degree or caliber of Southern California (love or hate the state, but there’s no denying it’s home to some of the most interesting and varied architecture in the world). I’m also guessing there are already lovely communities that offer great access to nature and public spaces. So what does Disney bring to the table?
It’s entirely possible that the area around Asteria is up-and-coming, and that Storyliving by Disney will fill a void for an upmarket housing development. In fact, I’d imagine that is the case. It’s unlikely that Disney and DMB Development simply threw a dart at the map and decided to build wherever it landed. But that still doesn’t mean there’s a void that only Storyliving by Disney could fill.
Frankly, the best place for Storyliving by Disney is Florida. Not just because there are a lot of diehard fans who are moving to the Sunshine State to be closer to Walt Disney World, although that’s definitely a big part of it. There would be a huge built-in market for this type of thing in Florida.
The bigger reason is because Central Florida has become a sea of subdivisions, the vast majority of which are dull and uninteresting. I say this as someone who lived in one of them, and toured many others. While we loved our time living in Florida, one of the biggest shortcomings–and this wasn’t just our perspective, we’ve heard it from many others–is how boring and cookiecutter all of the communities are.
Even the higher end builders only bring a little more to the table. They seem more focused on building quickly and efficiently to meet demand (understandable, since there’s a lot of it!) than they do thoughtfully. To be sure, almost all of these are very nice–and there are tremendous selling points for Horizon West–it’s just boring and very samey. The type of thing that could really benefit from a bit of Imagineering placemaking.
Everyone loves to hate on it or point to it as a cautionary tale, but Celebration, Florida is a lovely community. To be sure, it has a host of problems and I probably wouldn’t buy a home there as a result, but zoom out and look at the bigger picture–it’s beautiful, interesting, and well-planned.
Without a doubt, Celebration is the best community in Central Florida. Celebration has character, especially as compared to the bland and boring housing developments that have popped up throughout Central Florida in the decades since. The claims of Celebration being dystopian or having unsettling Pleasantville vibes are overblown and nonsensical. If you ever have the time and want to venture off-site during your Walt Disney World vacation, we’d recommend visiting Celebration.
I’d love to see more like Celebration in Central Florida. With that said, this is as much an indictment of the rest of the planned communities around Orlando than it is praise for Celebration. If Celebration were a community near Palm Springs, it would not be the least bit noteworthy.
I know cookiecutter housing developments are a thing all over the United States, but it seems more pronounced in Central Florida, where so much development has occurred all at once, leaving little that’s older or different. But perhaps this part of North Carolina is the same way, with a sea of subdivisions that all look the same. (I doubt it; the photos of Chatham Park look nice and university towns usually don’t have this problem.)
Ultimately, none of my thoughts actually matter. I’m not a prospective buyer for Asteria, just as I wasn’t for Cotino. And once again, I doubt the vast majority of you are, either. So it might feel nice to vent a little, but none of this matters. In the end, this will probably find an audience that is obsessed with the Disney brand and is willing to buy on that basis, overlooking all other alternatives.
In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty small development, and it shouldn’t be that difficult to find diehard Disney fans who have unwavering “faith, trust, and pixie dust” and are also sufficiently affluent to purchase these homes. That’s just my incredibly pessimistic take, though. If you’re the target audience and think Asteria or Cotino sound awesome, who cares what I think.
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Your Thoughts
What do you think of the Storyliving by Disney concept? Would you buy a home in Asteria, Cotino, or any future planned communities? Would you buy into Storyliving by Disney if it came to Central Florida? Think this will be a big hit, colossal flop, or something in between? Any questions? We love hearing from readers, so please share any other thoughts or questions you have in the comments below!
I live in a Raleigh suburb and have a friend who used to work for the town of Pittsboro on the development side, so this is particularly interesting to me because I’ve head that this is coming for several years now. Chatham Park, where this will be, is basically building a city from scratch. Pittsboro was/is a small, rural town with a population of 4500 people, according to wikipedia (sounds right to me). This town will be getting an additional 60k residents over the next few years, which basically replaces the town. I’m guessing most of the residents know this is coming (most of them fought it), but outside of Pittsboro I bet it will be a surprise.
I agree with others that most of the neighborhoods in Raleigh don’t really have architectural significance–land is expensive so every neighborhood puts as many houses on a plot of land as the zoning laws will allow. I’m of the opinion that for most people it makes more sense to have a bigger house vs a nicer looking house, so I don’t begrudge the neighborhoods for looking the way they do. In fact, I’m betting the HOA fees on this neighborhood will be $1k a month, which would keep me from buying there.
Right now, development slows at the Wake County line (where Raleigh is) because of the school systems. As you can imagine, the schools in a town of 4500 people aren’t the same as those in the 14th largest school district in the country. I imagine this will be a chicken/egg problem for a while, where schools will catch up as populations increase. In fact I suspect there will be a lot of growing pains in lots of areas. But it will also be completely new, completely planned, etc. So in that sense it will likely be very nice. In a way, it will be epcot. It will be interesting to see how it works.
“As you can imagine, the schools in a town of 4500 people aren’t the same as those in the 14th largest school district in the country. I imagine this will be a chicken/egg problem for a while, where schools will catch up as populations increase.”
This is how it’s been in Horizon West (and elsewhere in Central Florida) for several years now. They’d build a school, but by the time it would open, it was already too small. Literally–they’d have to use modular classrooms from the jump.
I certainly don’t begrudge developers for favoring efficiency–even though these homes are expensive, it does keep costs down. And older homes, for all their charm and beauty, can have a whole host of problems and be more maintenance-intensive. I still wish newer subdivisions had more personality and weren’t so same-y. (There are also some practical shortcomings of this approach–when your house is identical to your neighbor, that also means that the windows line up…which can be awkward!)
Pittsboro resident here, and I can tell you that the locals are in shock. It’s a very nice small town, granted with a lot of growth in the works. But we don’t have a lot of amenities, without having to drive 20-30 minutes, so I’m very surprised at Disney’s decision. What Im wondering is if there will be amenities within the neighborhood open to the public like restaurants and shops or if this will be a closed off, gated community exclusively for Asteria residents.
No kidding! It’s literally just a four-way stop for downtown, and then there are some big-box stores near 15-501. You can bet future retail will be targeted close to Chatham Park and not Pittsboro. Its remote location is probably what caused Chatham Park to come into existence: cheap land within driving distance of a town.
Although I was born in Miami, FL, I grew up in Asheville and now live in the Grandfather Mountain area. I’m biased but have always loved the diversity of the state (mountains, rolling hills, coastal plains/beaches, and lots of forest), and we do see a lot of transplants (I’m one as my family escaped the heat and crime of Miami in the early 80s!). In fact, I don’t live in Asheville now precisely because the dynamic is totally different than 20 years ago, but a lot of that has to do with geography – there are only so many places you can put roads and housing developments, so it gets congested fast. Not so much the Triangle area. (Okay, congestion is very real around Raleigh at the usual rush hours, but at least locals know plenty of ways around the main arteries.) The Triangle area is also super convenient to the area airports and trains, and as others have pointed out, it is and has been a technology and business power area. I’m not the target market for this development (give me mountains all day! Take me away from the heat!), but this will not have a problem selling!
Disney is continuing to either lose sight of focus, or simply continuing to commit brand suicide as I’ve recently heard it referred to. Is this another money grab? I can’t even comment on the idea because the big picture thought of this is so ludicrous. I recall during the Disney War when there were discussions to break up the brand, how terrible! Never thought I’d see the day that might be a good idea.
“The bigger reason is because Central Florida has become a sea of subdivisions, the vast majority of which are dull and uninteresting. I say this as someone who lived in one of them, and toured many others. While we loved our time living in Florida, one of the biggest shortcomings–and this wasn’t just our perspective, we’ve heard it from many others–is how boring and cookiecutter all of the communities are.”
Swap out “Florida” with “North Carolina” in the above and the end result is still an accurate statement. This community will be near one of the east coast’s most booming tech and higher education centers where median incomes are well above the national average, and housing prices are skyrocketing due to a seemingly endless string of transplants relocating here from all corners of the globe. Every subdivision in central NC sells out quickly; this one will be no different.
I’m glad to see someone building houses or housing. We have a shortage of housing inventory at the moment. Wish they would build something in Michigan.
I would ask that you put more research into the area, before making commentary on it. This is a very nice area, and it’s been attracting development for a long time, both locally and nationally. A lot of companies have already moved here, in anticipation of the growth. “Up and coming” is not an appropriate statement.
Most of my commentary revolves around the question, “what does the Walt Disney Company really bring to the table when it comes to residential design and community planning?”
How is knowledge of the area a prerequisite for discussing that?
It’s giving Living+ from Succession
I know Succession is based primarily on the Murdochs, but it’s more broadly a pastiche of media families and companies–and I’m pretty sure Living+ was based on Storyliving by Disney.
I mean, I’m a huge Disney adult and it seems a little Don’t Worry Darlin even for me.
North Carolina is beautiful! Obviously the best way to experience North Carolina is to travel there…but if you can’t there are a lot of movies/shows that have been filmed in the Wilmington area. The area which Disney wants to build is a wealthy area with prestigious schools close by. The weather and vibe there may be more preferable to a lot of Disney fans than Florida but close enough for long weekend getaways. However, I think coastal North Carolina is more appealing. If you ever get the chance go swimming at Emerald Isle ( the water is warm and clear but with better waves than the gulf.) Take an evening stroll in downtown Beaufort. We love going to Sand dollar island too. And yes, it’s a fantastic place to find sand dollars!
Thanks for those recommendations! Honestly no clue when we’ll have the chance to get back, but I’ll add them to my (already very long) list of places to see in the United States.
We are very excited about this concept. We had long hoped to retire to Golden Oak in Florida, but now that we are near retirement age, Florida has gone bonkers (especially with fights over Disney property), and Golden Oak is no longer an attractive option, but North Carolina is beautiful, and as a retired teacher, a community in the Research Triangle that has a life-long learning component to it and Disney standards could not sound more perfect.
“There’s no bad style of pizza” made me giggle a little after some of your reviews of Disney “pizza”. 🙂
(I know you’re talking more about regional differences here. You’ve just had some very colorful descriptions in the past.
Went to visit family in Palm Springs last December and Cotino was just a massive mound of dirt. Locals aren’t exactly thrilled as they are concerned about the water this will use in a desert.
North Carolinian here. Pittsboro is definitely a nice, up and coming area, thought I’d argue NC has the same subdivision overload as Florida.
Also, I await a public apology for your slight against our barbecue.
Whoa now, I said North Carolina BBQ is fantastic…just like all barbecue. That’s not a slight!
The best BBQ I’ve ever had was actually in Ohio–outside of Cincinnati. Central Florida has some great BBQ, too.
Now for the important question: was it a slight against Eastern-style or Lexington-style barbecue?
Lexington-style, always. I joke because we do take our barbecue WAY too seriously in this part of the world, so much that the idea of putting NC barbecue in the same sentence as anywhere else would make most people around here gasp.
“The Asteria community will be part of the larger, award-winning Chatham Park master-planned community”
That’s the fascinating part of this, Chatham Park is master-planned to have 60K residents and Asteria is merely one neighborhood within it. Here’s the first three lands planned:
https://chathampark.com/homes/neighborhoods/
Yeah, that’s interesting. I wonder if it’s all that different from Horizon West (Flamingo Crossings area), though. There are multiple different developments within that, each of which seems to have multiple phases. (Always reminds me of Del Boca Vista from Seinfeld.)
It’s so interesting to me that they announced another one before the first one is even built! They must have a lot of confidence in this idea. Maybe the one in Palm Springs is selling better than expected.
Off topic a little, but from what I have read Winter Park is a community in central FL that is an actual town and not a subdivision. How would you compare that to celebration ?
Presales for part of Cotino are already full. Even if they weren’t, I suspect Disney would keep doing Storyliving so long as there are interested developers. They’re the ones footing the bill, so it becomes a business decision about whether the cost of doing business with Disney can be recouped by charging higher prices. For now, the answer to that seems like an easy “yes.”
Winter Park is its own city. It’s on the opposite side of Walt Disney World, and is definitely more mature (meaning it’s not all less than a decade old). I like Winter Park, but it’s very much a “to each their own” type of thing. If I were going to live in Central Florida again, Doctor Phillips, Winter Garden, or Windermere would probably be my picks. Although I like the idea of Winter Park and being closer to Orlando (proper), being farther from the parks would be less ideal for me, personally.
I think you are spot on with your analysis of Celebration. With relatives in Orlando who’ve lived all over in the past 30 years, I’ve been to Celebration many, many times, and seen what many of the other developments look like. The idea that Celebration is fake or somehow inferior is ridiculous. Almost all of the subdivisions around Orlando and in most parts of the country are designed to have houses that look the same with little architectual interest, as cheaply as possible. Usually the main architectural element, even on expensive houses, is a giant garage door. And they’ve been surrounding the neighborhoods in Orlando with walls so driving across a giant road and waiting in line in traffic is the only way to shop for anything.
The timing is interesting since I’m looking to retire to that exact Pittsboro area in that time frame. It’s right down the street from other new urbanist neighborhoods like Farrington Village, Southern Village, and Briar Chapel. They are all in the Celebration mold, with a variety of houses that look like people live there, not cars, with plenty of places to walk to shop. But the whole point of moving 20m farther out from town was to retire into a cheaper home, not move into a super-high end neighborhood, and this is sure to drive up real estate prices across the board.
The downside to that location is its not convenient to commute to work anywhere. On paper its just down the road. In practice, when I lived 20m closer to Raleigh/Durham that Pittsboro, the huge amount of traffic from the universities and hospitals made it 40m each way to RTP.
I would hazard a guess that the majority of people who critique/criticize Celebration have never been there, or weighed it against the actual alternatives in the area. I think it would’ve been due for a critical reappraisal right about now, but all of the construction litigation probably has prevented that. Regardless, it’s nicer than most people believe and the reputation it has is unfair. We loved walking around there.
Thanks for sharing that about the location and other neighborhoods in the area!
My biggest complaint is the fact they’re building it in the Triangle instead of the Charlotte region.
But as far as North Carolina historical architecture goes, there are various styles depending on which part of the state you’re in. In some ways, North Carolina is like three states in one with all the cultural and historical differences between Eastern and Western NC with the Piedmont in-between the two. With Disney building this community in the Piedmont, the style that would probably be the best option for them to recreate/be inspired by is the Southern Craftsman chalet (think Craftsman, but with stonework instead of brick and huge front porches traditionally found in Southern architecture), that until very recently dominated most early 20th century urban neighborhoods in the state. Thanks to gentrification and out-of-state migration, many of these homes (and the surrounding trees) have been bulldozed and replaced with giant modernist block houses that are not only too big for their plots of land, but are taking out huge chunks of the tree canopies in many of these cities.
As someone who is from NC, raised near this area, and now lives between Asheville and Cherokee, this will do well. There is a very similar development right next door called Farrington Village that has been around for as long as I can remember(40+ years). The other side of this is Apple is building a campus in RTP about 20-30 minutes from this development. It’s smart of Disney to do this now as the need for high end housing just keeps increasing here.
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