Bryan Robinson has bought and sold 1,000 or so pieces of land in and around Richmond.

None is as beautiful as a 70-acre parcel that he found along the York River in New Kent County, the land broker says.

It was such a rare find that Robinson offered more than the asking price. He bought it the day it was listed five years ago.

Robinson said he wanted to do it right. "I will never see a project like this again. You can't find land like this. It doesn't exist."

He named it Shores of York and divided the land southeast of West Point into nine beach-front pieces.

The building sites are situated on a bluff among hardwoods away from flood plains and storm surge areas.

The lots range from 2.5 acres to 15 acres for deeper equestrian settings. "Virginia horse country meets the beach," Robinson said.

"Every house will have its own beach, its own pier. The property is 15 minutes from Williamsburg, 35 minutes from Richmond."

Other land brokers might have put in a few prime lots on the waterfront and sliced up the back acreage into small, cheaper parcels to monopolize on the project.

Not here. "Shores of York had the potential to be something great," Robinson said. "I wanted to carry it forward to be the best property in the state."

Lots start at $899,000. The most expensive is $1.3 million.

"We had been looking for years; and that is no exaggeration," said Laura Zaremba of Williamsburg.

She and her husband, Walt, bought the first lot, a 14-acre parcel, at Shores of York.

They had looked up and down the East Coast -- in Buford, S.C., Charleston, S.C., and Amelia Island, Fla. Nothing seemed quite right.

They settled on a townhouse in Kilmarnock overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. "We thought this was it," she said.

Yet, the location was too remote. The first time they went to a movie they traveled almost to Williamsburg, where they maintain their primary residence.

They looked again, this time at 12.5 acres in Mathews along the Rappahannock River for $1.25 million with no site work and "a pseudo beach," not a sandy one.

Too much work. And again, too far out.

Zaremba saw a picture of Shores of York, while flipping through a real estate magazine. "Where is this?" she asked a Realtor, thinking it was in the Caribbean.

It was in their backyard, closer to the couple's estate and business planning law office in Williamsburg than their home in the same town.

"I cannot imagine having the wherewithal and willingness to nurture this piece of property for five years until it was everything the way he wanted it," she said.

Robinson has put major dollars into the project, investing in a $35,000 sand grooming machine and $300,000 in landscaping.

He created a 10-acre buffer zone along the street to keep outside development from infringing on the community.

He put in break-waters to keep the beach from eroding, shell-packed pathways to the beach, boardwalks, four-rail equestrian fencing, automatic gates to winding driveways and cobblestone entryways.

All the common areas, roads and fencing will be maintained by a homeowner's association.

Eight men worked six months and burned up $17,000 worth of diamond bits cutting stones to make columns for each lot, Robinson said. The stones were hand-chiseled and stacked with no mortar.

"It's nice to have a high-energy client with a good vision," said David Gerstenmaier, president of Higgins & Gerstenmaier in Richmond, which did the landscape plan for the project.

Landscape architects often work to budgets, downsizing here or there to make it work, Gerstenmaier said. Not here.

"Bryan wanted to play up every lot," Gerstenmaier said. "He said 'just do it right.' Anything the project needs, it gets."

Every gate and column is unique. Each driveway is landscaped, irrigated and lighted.

Robinson envisions classic-style houses with porches overlooking the river. Architectural controls will be strict.

Houses will be a minimum 2,800 square feet. "It's not so much size as the fine detail," Robinson said.

Real shutters with real hinges, for example, will be required. And forget long, narrow windows.

It's all about scale and proportion to elevate the character, said Randy Holmes, managing director at Island Architects in Richmond, whose firm set the guidelines.

Residents are likely to build $1 million-plus homes, because the lots go for that much, he said.

"The architecture should evoke a sense of the land, a sense of the place, a sense of the history and a sense of the people," he said.