Looking for a little "elbow room"? A little place to get away from the rat race and back into nature? Space to grow a garden or have horses, goats or cows?

Or maybe you want to build a house from scratch -- a place that is "truly you." If you want to do that in Chapel Hill, you'll have to be creative. Almost every bit of land in town has been developed, according to Orange County Planning Director Craig Benedict. If you want to live in a single-family, detached dwelling within a 20-minute walk of downtown, your only choice is to buy an older house and remodel it or tear it down and rebuild to suit your tastes.

But if you can handle the commute, you might consider buying a lot in the Unincorporated Area of Orange County, where land, building materials and labor costs may be close to those in town limits but the taxes are much lower -- less than half of what you'll pay in Chapel Hill, Hillsborough or Carrboro.

Most developments out in Orange County are on septic systems and wells, which require most lots to be at least an acre to accommodate the septic field a safe distance from the well, according to Joe Phelps, who has been selling real estate in Orange County for 21 years.

"A few years ago, we had a pretty big supply of vacant lots out in the unincorporated areas," Phelps said, "but now there is not a big supply on hand because it is quite expensive to develop subdivisions in Orange County."

At that time, Phelps sold several, hundred-acre tracts at $6,000 to $10,000 per acre. Now Phelps has 10-acre lots in the low-$125,000 to $130,000 range. That may seem like a lot of money, but when you have people buying one-third-acre lots in Cary for $100,000, getting 10 acres in Orange County for the same money seems like a pretty good deal for some breathing room.

"I have people coming in from Durham and Chapel Hill on a postage stamp lot, and they want some elbow room," Phelps said. "Some of them are not going to build for 10 years or more until they get their kids through school, then they plan to retire to the country."

The gently rolling meadows and woods of Triple Creek Farms brought Long Island raised Geraldine "Gerry" Lando and her husband, Roy, to Orange County. The couple had raised their children in Chapel Hill from 1975 to 1996, when a call to do research at Tulane University took them to New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina and a call to continue research at UNC brought them back, but this time to Orange County.

Gerry's avocation and passion of European horse dressage had her looking for some space for her European warm bloods. They found Triple Creek Farms, which is sold through Joe Phelps Realty, but the couple had to sell their New Orleans property before Gerry could move back. In fall 2007, she finally moved back to a mobile home Roy had been living in while building their geo-thermally heated farm house, which was finished in December 2007.

"I love it here," Gerry says. "Roy's passion is reading books, so he could live anywhere and be happy. As far as shopping, the easiest thing to do is shop on your way home from work. The biggest problem is getting friends to find you when you're entertaining. They say, 'Where are you?' and you have to draw them little maps."

For those who can live on less than 10 acres, Phelps has some moderately priced lots in Bricewood Acres off of Governor Scott Road. These 1.5-acre parcels are listed in the $35,000 range. "You can build a house as small as 1,200 square feet in Bricewood, which allows people to build a small home for $150,000 after architectural review," Phelps said.

A subdivision priced between those of Triple Creek Farms and Bricewood is Buckhorn Ridge, near the Orange/Alamance County line. This beautiful subdivision in west Orange County boasts 30 acres of open space, two miles of walking trails, underground utilities and is only three minutes to I-40/I-85.

Michele Myers of MSquared Building has built seven houses in Buckhorn Ridge and has two lots still available. Myers, whose business is based in Durham County, has also built several custom homes in Northern Orange County. She says she hears from her customers that people buying "out in the county" are looking for more elbow room, walking trails, nature preserves, wetlands, and room to raise kids and sometimes farm animals. They want the privacy they've never found in city neighborhoods on small lots.

"People want more land and privacy, and they don't care that it is not beside a Walmart," Myers said. "The people in North Orange enjoy the restaurants and the whole deal going on in Hillsborough and don't feel they are that far out. Same thing with people living in Buckhorn Ridge, they go to Burlington, Elon, and Mebane. All of them have great shopping and good restaurants, too.

When gasoline prices spiked, they figured out how to get to their jobs using park-n-ride lots and buses or ride-sharing for part of their commutes. "People who live out in the county learn how to shop efficiently," Myers said. "Every trip into town is a multi-tasking of errands. When they commute to work, they go by the store on the way home."