In the waiting room of the Property Owner’s Association office of Hot Springs Village, a man, carrying a map of the area, walked in needing directions.
He had just bought property in the community and was making the steps necessary to move to Arkansas from Alaska.
“There is no place anywhere in the world like it is here,” said Lesley Nalley, chief executive officer for the Village.
“You can do and be whatever it is that you enjoy. Whether you are a golfer, we have nine courses — whether you are a lake enthusiast or enjoy trails, or whether you want to be at the top of a mountain and be by yourself,” she said.
“We aren’t as cold as Alaska, and we actually have the four distinct seasons here,” said Nalley, who lives in the Village.
“We have a beautiful forest here, at the foothills of the Ouachita forest, and we see the leaves turning in the fall,” Nalley said. “We have nice mild winters, relatively speaking.
“And in the spring and summer, that’s when the fun begins here, for sure.”
She said the Village also has a fitness center and a state-of-the-art auditorium, which features all sorts of artists and acts of different kinds.
Nalley was born and raised in Arkansas, having graduated from Sylvan Hills High School in 1990. She received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Arkansas in Little Rock in 1994 and earned a master’s degree from the University of Saint Mary, an online school, in 2014.
“My great-grandparents settled here in Little Italy, just on the other side of Paron,” Nalley said. “I’ve always known about the Village, but I didn’t live here, and I didn’t know much about it.
“A recruiter called me and told me about the position, and it just sounded like an amazing opportunity to take this private community and keep moving it forward.”
Nalley volunteers for multiple organizations, including the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging, the Arkansas Housing Trust Fund and the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas.
“I spend a lot of time volunteering with different organizations,” she said.
Nalley was originally hired as the chief financial officer in June 2014 and was promoted to CEO in December.
“My job is to ensure our strategic vision, which is bigger than any one person — to ensure the vision of growth and relevance continues forward and outlives all of us,” Nalley said.
Since the Village is a private community, it has its own police force and fire department, and Nalley said the Village has more than 600 employees.
“Our residents come here to live their dreams, and at the end of the day, my role is to ignite that passion across those 600 employees and bring our 14,000 residents here to bring all that passion together and keep us moving forward,” she said.
Nalley said Hot Springs Village broke ground in the 1970s, and almost 50 years later, for it to remain a private community, “is just an amazing story in itself.”
“As a private community, you don’t receive tax money, and you don’t qualify for a lot of the state and federal grants,” Nalley said.
One of the continuing projects for Nalley and her team is trying to personalize a community across the 26,000 acres. Therefore, they formed nine distinct regions that highlight either golf, lakes or trails, allowing a sense of community.
“At Hot Springs Village, we are taking that concept of placemaking to heart,” she said. “How do we help people connect, not just in Hot Springs Village or in their particular region, but in their neighborhood and down to their street?”
The nine regions include the West Village, The Foothills, Cortez Highlands, Glazy Peau, Coronado, The Mountain, the Village Center, SoBo and the East Village.
“Some of the other things we have done include Grove Park,” Nalley said. “We put that in a couple of years ago, and it has become an area for a farmers market.
“That’s something lots of different communities enjoy, and it has been a place to come together and get fresh vegetables. …
“So many communities are focused on building buildings, but we are really trying to create communities.”
Last year, the Village did a remodel on a marina in the West Village, renovating the space with a deck.
“At Wavepoint, we have different kinds of music and a fishing peer off to one side,” Nalley said. “It is just another place where people can go and gather.”
The Village also launched its very first real estate office — Village Homes and Land — in the La Plaza Center near the East Gate.
“So the Property Owner’s Association has gone back to our roots and is looking to take a very active role in the real estate sales and development,” Nalley said.
She also said the Village opened a discovery center in downtown Hot Springs, right next to the Arlington Hotel.
“Hot Springs gets about 3 million visitors a year,” Nalley said. “The discovery center is a great place where people can go and learn more about the Village.”
Nalley said one of the biggest misconceptions concerning the Village is that it is geared solely to the older generation.
“Most people don’t recognize it, but we already are a community of somewhat younger people,” Nalley said. “We have 700 children that go to school out here, to either Jessieville or Fountain Lake.
“And part of our marketing effort has been to showcase the fact that we already reached out to younger people and want to continue to do that.”
She also said it is a safe place for singles.
“Not only it is a safe place, but it is also a friendly place …,” Nalley said. “We have a lot of widows, even younger widowers, and we have tons of groups that travel and do things together.
“We probably have over 200 groups. I think that is something else people don’t realize. No matter what you are interested in, there are probably a handful of other people who are interested in the same thing.”
Nalley said the original marketing for the Village was a retire-here focus because the cost of living is so low.
“People who would be in their 50s, if they retired early,” Nalley said, “so the initial group was retirees. But now we have these second- and third-generation owners Kids and grandkids would come to love this place, and it is a place for all of us.
“We want to be a great place to retire, or work and live — our focus has shifted.”
Still, Nalley said, the median age for Village residents is 62, and Hot Springs Village has had a $371 million impact on the state of Arkansas.
“Retirees are an economic driver for this state,” Nalley said. “People from Texas, Oklahoma and Alaska have brought their wealth and resources with them to the state.”
Stephanie Heffer, director of placemaking and development for the Village, said the Village is in a bit of a renaissance.
“We have so much going on beyond the golf courses, trails, mountain and beauty,” Heffer said. “We want to take it beyond ourselves and focus on everything else as we market and get our message out.”
Heffer said Nalley is taking the vision for growth and running with it.
“She and I have worked together for almost three years,” Heffer said. “She is amazing, and such a visionary and a professional.
“She leads by example. She is somebody who will not leave the office first and works harder than anybody else.
“Everything she does is about how can we make this place better, even for those who have yet to come here.”
Heffer, who is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, has lived in the Village for 26 years and has raised two kids.
“It’s been a great place for family,” she said. “It is not just about retirement anymore.”
Currently, the Village has 34,155 residential lots, and there are only 9,000 that have been built on. So as the Village looks to expand and bring in more residents, Nalley said one of her other goals is to incorporate what she called the missing middle ideology of housing.
“We went through the phase of the McMansions, and we have some beautiful homes on the lake,” she said. “But now we have these two generations who are wanting to see the same type of housing.”
Nalley said the older generation wants to downgrade from the larger houses, and the younger millennials want the smaller, less-upkeep houses.
“They want the 1,200- to 2,500-square-foot house,”
Nalley said. “We have put together a builder’s guild, and we are trying to connect builders who will help us develop those new housing sites.”
Nalley said, for example, that maybe there’s an older couple who still love golf, but they don’t want to live in the 5,000-square-foot house.
“Well, maybe we can find them a 1,200-square-foot cottage on the Coronado Executive Course, which is a smaller Par 3 course,” Nalley said.
Heffer is currently working side by side with Nalley on accomplishing one of Nalley’s biggest goals, which is to open a Village Center — a mixed-use area similar to the Village at Hendrix in Conway and Black Apple Crossing in Northwest Arkansas.
“We have a real need to bring together some mixed-use space, with both commercial and retail,” Nalley said. “It is a new urbanism, where urban and suburban come together.
“We want you to still feel safe and still feel like you are in a community.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.