For Sale

Homes for sale Sonoma County with a front lawn

According to the New York Times, having a front lawn started in 18th-century England when affluent individuals began accumulating land and private property. Placing a large house in the middle of a grassy area showed that they had the ability to own land that was not used for farming.

This practice made its way to the U.S., where in the 19th century owning a house with a lawn became an aspiration for homeowners who found themselves part of the newly defined middle class.

On the West Coast, especially in California where the amount of rainfall is nowhere near what’s normal in England, lawns were a status symbol because of the amount of care and water needed to keep them healthy looking. In the 1960s, there began to be more attention paid to the amount of water these lawns took to maintain, and the affect this had on California’s natural resources, leading to the beginning of the movement to replace lawns with garden in the front yards of homes using native plants that needed less water and attention.

Recently, as California has weathered years of drought, water conservation brought drought tolerant landscaping into the forefront, with some homeowners choosing to rip out existing lawns and replace them with native plants, succulents. or rock gardens.

Click through our gallery above to preview these currently listed homes in Sonoma County with a front lawn

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