Drive across the bridge at the northern edge of The Ridge and for most of the last hundred years you would have found nothing on the other side. No docks, no cleared lots, no mailboxes. Just a 150-acre island sitting in the middle of Lake Martin, connected to one of the lake's largest developments by a span that locals have long called the Bridge to Nowhere. This year, for the first time since Alabama Power flooded the Tallapoosa River valley in 1926, that changed.
Russell Lands released the first 16 estate lots and two 10-acre compound lots on what it now markets as Ridge Island. County records refer to the same tract under an older name, Chimney Rock Island, part of a plat the Elmore County Commission approved for what filings call Ridge Phase IX. Same island, same 18 lots, two names depending on whether you're reading a sales brochure or a county filing. That gap between names is worth sitting with, because it points to the real story here: this land didn't sell for a century not because nobody wanted it, but because nobody could legally get to it.
The Vote That Actually Unlocked the Island
On November 10, 2025, the Elmore County Commission voted unanimously to approve the road-building plan required before any lot on the island could be platted and sold. That single vote is the reason Ridge Island exists as a product today rather than as a rumor. Russell Lands had owned the ground for decades. What it hadn't had, until that meeting, was a legal path to build a road across it, and without a road there is no buildable lot, no matter how much shoreline the island has.
By late June 2026, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of Martin Dam's completion, Russell Lands announced Phase 1 was open for sale. That's roughly seven months between the regulatory approval and the actual product hitting the market, which tells you something useful if you're comparing lots at The Ridge right now: the timeline here wasn't set by demand curves or listing agents deciding it was a good week to launch. It was set by a county commission agenda.
What Phase 1 Actually Is
The numbers are specific enough to be worth laying out plainly, because they explain the price tiers you'll see if you start asking questions at The Ridge.
| Lot type | Count | Average size | Waterfront frontage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional estate lots | 16 | 1.28 acres | ~298 feet |
| Family compound lots | 2 | 10+ acres | 600+ feet |
| Eventual full build-out | ~50 total homesites | — | — |
Ridge Island is planned to function as a gated enclave inside The Ridge rather than an open extension of it, according to Russell Lands' own description of the project. That distinction matters for anyone assuming Ridge Island lots are just more Ridge inventory with better views. They're a separate tier, both physically and in terms of access.
Why This Is the Last Phase, Not the Next One
Here's the detail that should change how you read every other number in this piece. The Ridge is already Lake Martin's largest waterfront development, with more than 400 properties developed and sold to date. Ridge Island is being described, by the people selling it, as the long-planned final neighborhood of The Ridge.
That phrase carries weight. At most large lake developments, a phase release is followed eventually by another phase, and buyers who miss one window can reasonably expect another to open in a year or two. At The Ridge, once Ridge Island's roughly 50 homesites are sold out, there is no more buildable land left inside the development to plat. The island wasn't held back for a marketing drip. It sat idle for a century because the road plan didn't exist, and now that it does, this is the last chapter, not an ongoing series.
The Premium Isn't Really About the View
If you've been cross-shopping waterfront lots on Lake Martin, you've probably noticed that Russell Lands-developed lots consistently cost more than comparable acreage elsewhere on the lake, and the gap isn't small. For the 12 months ending April 30, 2026, Russell Lands waterfront lots averaged $1,224,168, compared to $452,406 for non-Russell Lands waterfront lots lake-wide, according to Lake Martin Realty's market reporting for that period. That's close to a three-fold difference for property that, on paper, sits on the same 44,000-acre reservoir.
The instinct is to attribute that gap to amenities, or the clubhouse, or the marina. Those matter, but Ridge Island demonstrates a more direct mechanism: whoever controls when land is released controls a meaningful part of what the lake-wide average looks like in any given month. That same market report notes the highest average waterfront lot price it had recorded came in September 2025, tied directly to the release of The Heritage's Phase 4 lots. When a developer with land in reserve chooses to open a new phase, it doesn't just add inventory. It resets the pricing conversation for that stretch of shoreline, because for a window of time, that new inventory is the only large, unspoken-for waterfront land changing hands.
Ridge Island is the same pattern playing out on a longer fuse. A hundred years of dormancy, followed by a single county vote, followed by a phase release that will, by Russell Lands' own description, be the last one this development ever has.
What This Means If You're Comparing Lots Right Now
If a Ridge Island lot is priced meaningfully above a comparable resale lot elsewhere in The Ridge, you're not just paying for better frontage. You're paying for the fact that this is finite, dated supply with no reasonable expectation of a follow-up phase to wait for. That's a different calculation than waiting out a soft market, because there isn't a next release to wait for at this particular address.
Lake-wide, the broader market gives you a sense of where demand currently sits. Across the 12 months ending June 30, 2026, waterfront residential prices at Lake Martin rose 26.8% on a median basis, according to Lake Martin Realty's reporting sourced from the Lake Martin Area Association of Realtors, with active listings running 14.2% ahead of the same point in 2025. Inventory is up, but so is price, which is the kind of combination you typically see when a market has more buyers competing for the specific, scarce categories of property, waterfront acreage with real frontage among them, even as overall listing counts grow.
None of this means every buyer should chase Ridge Island specifically. A traditional estate lot on the island runs a similar size to plenty of resale lots elsewhere in The Ridge's established phases, and those existing lots come with a track record: neighbors, mature landscaping, proof of how the shoreline behaves through a full drawdown cycle. What Ridge Island buys you is finality. You're not betting on whether Russell Lands releases another phase in three years. There isn't one.
A Few Straight Answers
Is Ridge Island gated separately from the rest of The Ridge? Yes. Russell Lands describes it as functioning as its own gated enclave inside the broader Ridge development, rather than an open extension of existing streets.
Will there be additional phases after this one? Ridge Island is expected to include roughly 50 total homesites once fully built out, and it's described by the developer as the final neighborhood planned for The Ridge. Once this land sells, there is no additional undeveloped tract remaining inside the community to plat.
How do Ridge Island lots compare to a typical Ridge waterfront lot? Phase 1's 16 estate lots average 1.28 acres with roughly 298 feet of waterfront, sizing that's competitive with strong resale lots elsewhere in The Ridge. The two compound lots, at more than 10 acres and 600 feet of shoreline each, are a different category entirely, closer to a private family retreat than a standard homesite.
If you're trying to figure out whether a Ridge Island lot, a resale lot elsewhere in The Ridge, or a different Lake Martin neighborhood entirely fits what you're actually building toward, that's a conversation worth having before any offer goes in. Ashley Chancellor works Lake Martin's waterfront and lot inventory full time, including the Russell Lands releases that don't always make it to the open market right away. Reach out and find your Lake Martin home.
