Key takeaways
- Tri Pointe Homes is launching what it says is the final residential buildout at Snoqualmie Ridge under current zoning.
- The new Timber Trails neighborhood is slated to have 46 three‑ to four‑bedroom homes priced from $1 million, some with designs by Bobby Berk from Netflix’s “Queer Eye” reality show.
- As Snoqualmie Ridge nears full buildout and population growth slows, Tri Pointe is betting demand remains for high‑end, low‑maintenance homes in a commutable Seattle‑area location despite a cooling housing market.
Once, the land of what’s now Washington’s Snoqualmie Ridge was untouched, blanketed with native forests. Now it’s filled with neighborhoods, schools and commercial hubs, and the national homebuilder that kicked off the master-planned development is selling houses in the area’s final residential buildout.
At least the final buildout under current zoning.
Tri Pointe Homes built its first neighborhood in Snoqualmie Ridge in the 1990s, Trisha Lynn, the vice president of community experience for Tri Pointe Washington, told Homes.com News.
Last weekend, the Nevada-based homebuilder held the grand opening of its 46-residence Timber Trails, with sizes ranging from 1,900 to 3,100 square feet, pricing starting at $1 million and some interior designs by TV host and author Bobby Berk. That price point is around the neighborhood’s median single-family sales figure of $1.3 million.
“We definitely checked with the municipality to ensure there isn’t any other zoning for new homes in the area,” Lynn said. “And they confirmed that we were, in fact, the last.”
Since the ‘90s, Tri Pointe has completed slightly more than 1,100 units in the King County development and sold its 20,000th Washington residence last month.
Lynn has been with Tri Pointe for three years and in the building industry for 34 years, and this kind of full-circle neighborhood development is a new moment in her career, she said. “It is something very meaningful for us and something very, very rare. To be the first and the last is something I’ve never experienced.”
Other homebuilders working in the area added townhouses and other residential offerings over the years, but residential development has slowed, Lynn said. “There’s been a long period of time, nearly a decade, where there has not been any new neighborhood construction at all.”
Although Lynn didn’t know the name of Tri Pointe’s first Snoqualmie Ridge development, she said, it was launched back when Tri Pointe was Quadrant Homes (Quadrant merged with Tri Pointe in 2014). Those homes were “smaller, more affordable cottages that really appealed to the first-time buyer” and “to what we call ‘first-move-up buyers,’” looking for a bit more space and more home features, Lynn said.
Today’s Timber Trails three- to four-bedroom residences prioritize “low-maintenance living, but at a higher level,” Lynn said, encompassing townhouses and what Tri Pointe calls “paired homes,” which resemble duplexes. Paired homes are a newer product in the market, she added, and the open-concept option ranges from 2,800 to 3,100 square feet with three-car tandem garages.
“The paired home was what we thought would appeal to a buyer by giving them an alternative to townhome living and single-family living,” Lynn said. “It’s kind of a hybrid.”
Timber Trails also has two paired model homes outfitted by Berk, an interior designer, TV host and author. Known for his work on Netflix’s “Queer Eye” reality show, Berk has partnered with Tri Pointe since April 2025, and his models have a “fresh perspective” that draws buyers in, Lynn said.
The so-called BB Edit also shows “livability, but it also really inspires people,” she added.
Snoqualmie has been a 'unicorn of sorts' for builder
Since Tri Pointe began working on the ridge, it’s been “a unicorn of sorts because of its proximity to large employment centers, so it’s very commutable,” Lynn said.
The ridge is roughly 30 minutes each from Seattle and Bellevue by car and about a 10-minute drive from downtown Snoqualmie, but it’s also dotted with parks and walking trails, Lynn said. While 12,000 residents live in the ridge, 14,121 people call Snoqualmie home, according to the 2020 Census. That was a 32% increase from the decade before, and city estimates show the population expanded a further 2% in 2021 to hit 14,370.
“While Snoqualmie grew significantly from 2000 through 2010 as one of the fastest growing communities in Washington, the City's annual rate of growth has been slowing as Snoqualmie Ridge approaches full buildout,” officials wrote on the city’s website. “Annual growth rates have been between 1% and 3% for the past several years and are likely to stay at these lower rates for the immediate future.”
Home sales prices cooled in kind, falling 4% in the neighborhood over the past year, according to Homes.com.
Still, as the development opens during a slower spring-buying season — and with that slower population growth on the horizon — Tri Pointe is seeing “more of a normalization” in the market, Lynn said. “We still have active buyers, especially for a home in the right location.”
Two early sales — Timber Trails opened to a “priority group” before its April 11 grand event — show further promise, she added.