7535 Cripple Creek Road NW

Ventana Ranch homes for sale sit up on the West Mesa in 87114, northwest of Paseo del Norte and east of Universe Boulevard. Sandia Properties started the project in 1996 on roughly 1,250 acres and had it substantially finished inside a decade. That's the part I'd underline for a buyer. Plenty of west-side master plans ran out of money halfway and left people living beside a weed lot for years. This one got built out, the parks got built, and the landscaping has had twenty-odd years to fill in.The layout is not a grid. Streets curve, the ground rises and falls, and cul-de-sacs hang off the loops instead of running through. You get real elevation change here. From the higher lots on the west side you're looking across the valley at the Sandias, and the sunsets toward Mount Taylor are the thing people actually mention once they've lived here a while.The housesAlmost everything went up between the late 1990s and the mid 2000s, built by production builders working a set of plans. Stucco, ti...