Like an ocean view or a Park Avenue address, majestic old-growth trees have become invaluable commodities in luxury real estate. Inspired by their sculptural beauty,

Leafy Mature Trees add Premium Value to Real Estate

architects are designing or remodeling entire homes around them. High-end developers—once known for stripping tracts of land to the dirt and planting saplings after construction—are now calling off the bulldozers.

“You can’t go out and buy a 50- or 75-year-old oak tree,” said Jack Perkins, vice president of Elm Street Development, a residential developer in Washington, D.C. Elm Street bought an 8½-acre estate near Georgetown to build 1801 Foxhall, a community of 27 multimillion-dollar homes. Before breaking ground on the project, the developer dispatched an arborist to catalog and evaluate every mature spruce, sycamore and poplar tree.

CLICK HERE or http://bit.ly/leafyRE for the article by AMY GAMERMAN Wall Street Journal