A buyer touring Thornberry on a Saturday morning sees homes in the $450,000s on lots a little bigger than a third of an acre. That afternoon, ten minutes away, the same buyer walks through a home in Westlake priced near $900,000 on a lot backing up to open water. Two different developments, the buyer assumes. Two different builders with two different visions for what this corner of Madison County should look like.
That assumption is wrong, and knowing why changes how you should shop all three.
Thornberry, Silverleaf, and Westlake sit on the same 510-acre tract at the corner of Dewees and Stribling Roads. They were never conceived as separate communities competing for the same buyer. They were platted as one project, cut into three price tiers from the start.
The Plat Map That Explains Everything
Madison County's own pre-plat engineering records for this tract show the layout plainly. On a single site drawing filed with the county, the sections are labeled side by side: Silverleaf, Thornberry Phase 3A, Westlake Phase 1, Westlake Phase 2, and Westlake Phase 3, sharing common areas and internal roads. You can pull the county's plat documentation and see it yourself. It is not three developers who happened to build next to each other. It is one master plan, divided by lot size and price point before the first foundation was poured.
The builder behind it lists all three by name as active projects in the same corridor, alongside its work in nearby Glenwild. Construction across the tract dates to roughly 2019, with new phases still releasing lots in some sections today.
Local market reporting has picked up on this too, even if most buyers touring the homes never connect the dots. One recent roundup of Madison's top neighborhoods grouped Thornberry, Silverleaf, and Westlake as a single entry rather than three, noting more than 90 combined sales across the three sections in a recent two-year stretch at an average price near $491,000. That average only makes sense once you know it's blending a $450,000 Thornberry starter home with an $850,000 Silverleaf custom build on the same spreadsheet.
Same Corner, Three Different Price Tags
The gap between these three sections isn't about which one has the better builder or the more desirable name on the entrance sign. It's largely a function of lot size, with Westlake's lakefront setting also contributing.
| Section | Typical lot size | Typical home size | Recent price range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thornberry | roughly a third to four-tenths of an acre | around 2,300 to 2,500 sq ft | $450,000 to $550,000 |
| Silverleaf | roughly three-quarters of an acre to just over one acre | around 3,100 to 4,100 sq ft | $600,000 to $900,000-plus |
| Westlake | half an acre to just over an acre, more on the water | 3,500 sq ft and up | $700,000 to $1,000,000-plus |
Thornberry was drawn with smaller, denser lots to hit a lower price point and a faster sales pace. Its original plan called for around 360 total lots across five phases, and homes there have consistently landed in the low-to-mid $400,000s to $500,000s. Silverleaf went the opposite direction, platted with fewer, larger lots that push the average home size and price well past Thornberry's. Westlake did both at once: larger lots and a 60-acre private lake at the center of the section, which is what pushes its top end past $900,000 and occasionally past $1 million on true waterfront sites.
None of that price spread comes from a different construction standard. Buyers who have toured homes across all three sections describe similar finish levels: engineered hardwood, quartz or granite counters, gas cooktops, walk-in pantries, the finish package that's become standard across new construction in this price band throughout Madison County. The premium in Silverleaf and Westlake is a land premium, not a materials premium.
Why One Developer Priced One Tract Three Ways
This kind of internal segmentation is a common land-planning move, even if it's rarely explained to the buyer standing in the model home. A single parcel this size can serve more of the market if it's cut into different lot sizes rather than built out at one uniform density. Smaller lots in Thornberry capture buyers who want new construction but have a tighter budget or don't need a full acre to mow. Larger lots in Silverleaf serve buyers trading up who want space between neighbors. Westlake's waterfront lots capture the buyer willing to pay meaningfully more for a lake view.
The effect is that one developer, working one tract, can sell to three different budgets without any of the three sections cannibalizing the others. A buyer priced out of Westlake doesn't have to leave the area. They just cross into Thornberry on a smaller lot, still inside the same 510 acres, still zoned to the same schools, still a five-minute drive from the same entrance corridor off Stribling Road.
What's Actually Shared, and What Genuinely Isn't
Everything upstream of the lot line tends to be shared across the three sections: the same builder roster, the same rough construction timeline going back to 2019, the same Madison County School District, and access through the same Dewees and Stribling Road corridor that has been the subject of its own county infrastructure planning in recent years.
What changes section to section is everything downstream of the lot line. Each section has developed its own homeowners association and its own amenity package rather than sharing one HOA across the full 510 acres. Thornberry's amenities have centered on a neighborhood pool. Westlake's center on the private lake itself. Silverleaf, by comparison, has stayed the smallest and least amenity-driven of the three, built around large individual lots rather than a shared clubhouse or pool. If you're comparing HOA dues or amenity access, you have to compare section by section. That part genuinely doesn't roll up into one number.
Entrances differ too. Someone touring all three on the same day needs to plan for that as a driving logistics question, not just a floor plan question. Thornberry's access runs off Dewees Road. Silverleaf and Westlake sit further along Stribling. It's a five-minute difference at most, but if you're stacking four showings into an afternoon, it's worth mapping in advance rather than discovering it between appointments.
What This Means If You're Cross-Shopping These Three
If you're comparing new construction in this part of Madison, the practical move is to stop treating Thornberry, Silverleaf, and Westlake as three separate markets and start treating them as three price bands within one market. Ask what lot size you actually need before you ask which "neighborhood" sounds best. A buyer who wants a low-maintenance yard and a starting price under $500,000 is shopping Thornberry's lot sizes, whatever section name ends up on the mailbox. A buyer who wants an acre and a slower pace of construction turnover is shopping Silverleaf, which has fewer active listings at any given time simply because it has fewer total lots than the other two.
And if lake access matters more than square footage, Westlake is the only section of the three built around that feature, which is the actual reason its top-end pricing separates from the other two rather than any difference in builder or school assignment.
Because all three sections draw from the same builder pool and the same underlying tract, pricing across them tends to move together. A shift in one section's inventory or incentive structure is worth watching if you're shopping the other two, since it often signals something about demand across the whole 510 acres rather than just that one section.
FAQ
Do Thornberry, Silverleaf, and Westlake share one HOA? No. Each section maintains its own homeowners association and amenity package even though all three sit on the same originally-platted tract.
Is new construction still available in all three sections? Recent listings show active new construction in each section, though availability shifts as phases build out. Thornberry has the most total planned lots of the three and has released phases most recently.
Are the schools the same across all three sections? The developer's own project materials place both Thornberry and Westlake in the Madison County School District. Confirm current attendance zones for any specific address, since school district assignments can be adjusted by the district over time.
If you're trying to figure out which section of this tract actually fits your budget and lot preference, or you want a walk-through of what's currently available across Thornberry, Silverleaf, and Westlake without guessing at price differences, Real Estate Partners can pull current inventory across all three and get your instant home valuation started if you're selling nearby.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
