For more private pilots, home is where their plane is parked
John Hromoho and his wife, Juanita, are about to start constructing their dream home. It will be located in a charming part of the New Jersey countryside, near rustic red barns, a quaint little horse farm ... and an airport runway. While most homeowners complain about noisy airplane engines, the vroom of low-flying aircraft, says Mr. Hromoho, is "music to our ears."
It's music to the ears of an increasing number of recreational aviators, so enamored of flying they actually want to live with their planes. Just as avid golfers have golf-course communities and world travelers can purchase condominiums on a cruise ship, today's pilots have the option of living in residential airparks, neighborhoods built along landing strips. Each home comes with a hangar, and pilots can taxi from driveway to runway without ever having to get into a car and drive to the airport.
Residential airparks have proliferated in recent years. Exact numbers are difficult to obtain, but since the first opened in California more than 60 years ago, over 500 have been built, and in all but four states, says Dave Sclair, founder of Living With Your Plane (www.living withyourplane.com), an online airpark directory.
"It's like living with your hobby," says Hromoho.
Most airpark communities are located in warmer Southern states - Florida is a popular location - and in rural areas. Some are situated at airports where nonresident pilots are permitted to land their aircraft. Others reserve landing rights for residents only. They range in size from a few small houses near a landing strip to full neighborhoods with multimillion-dollar houses built near runways able to accommodate private jets.
Probably the most famous is Jumbolair Aviation Estates near Ocala, Fla. Run by former Revlon model and pilot Terri Jones-Thayer, Jumbolair has become something of an airpark for the rich and famous. One of the few facilities of its kind able to handle commercial airliners, it's where actor John Travolta parks a Boeing 707 and a Gulfstream jet beside his lavish home, which is next to a runway.
Being able to fly wherever and whenever one wants is downright liberating, says Michael Raichle, property manager of Aero Estates, a residential airpark in Lake Palestine, Texas.
"I live about 200 miles north of Houston, so I might fly over to Houston or Dallas, just anywhere; take off and go," says the retired commercial airline pilot.
On weekends, Mr. Raichle says, he frequently hops in his two-seat Piper Aero and flies a few hundred miles just for lunch. He moved to Aero Estates shortly after the airpark opened in 1987, and now counts 14 homes on the property. His neighbors include a teacher, a lawyer, and a truck driver: a fairly typical mix of residents, say residential airpark managers.
The joy of living close to one's plane is not the only reason for residing at an airpark. There are also powerful economic incentives, says Mr. Sclair.
An individual can spend several hundred dollars per month renting a hangar at a local airport. "If you take that money and make your house payment, you kill two birds with one stone," he says.
Airport owners also have a reason to build a residential development near their runways, says Kent Linn, owner of Sky Manor Airport in Hunterdon County, N.J., where Hromoho plans to build his home. He lays a blueprint out on a table at the airport restaurant and begins to explain his plans for a gated airpark community. Outside, the occasional airplane buzzes past the window as it taxis for takeoff. [Editor's note: The original version misnamed the county where the airport is located.]
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