Your Community Guide · Shallotte, Brunswick County, North Carolina
Solserra
Riverfront living taking shape in Shallotte, North Carolina
There is something different about living near a tidal river. The light changes
through the day, the marsh never looks exactly the same twice, and the coast feels close even
when you are home. Solserra is being built around that setting — a new Shallotte community
where riverfront landscape, everyday convenience and a still-emerging neighborhood come together.
For eighteen years this land was known as San Rio. Today it is Solserra:
more than three miles of Shallotte River frontage, new homes underway, an amenity center already
open, and a long-range plan approved for more than a thousand residences. Here is what is
actually built, what is still planned, and how the different sections really work.
372acres in the approved PUD, plus older platted sections outside it
1,019homes approved in the PUD at full build-out
3+ miof frontage along the Shallotte River
2.8homes per acre — half the density of the 2011 plan
8–10 yrbuild-out projected by the developer
Unit counts, acreage and density per the Solserra PUD approved by the Shallotte Board of Aldermen, May 6, 2025. Approved is not the same as built.
“I wanted to create these Community Guides because every neighborhood along our coast
has its own personality, history, and little details that you simply can't see in a listing
search. Over the past 20 years, I've worked with many of the builders who helped bring these
communities to life, and I've watched them grow from the ground up. Along the way, I've had
the privilege of welcoming so many people home here. These guides are my way of sharing what
makes each community different, what makes them special, and why so many people are proud to
call them home.”
Picture a Saturday that starts without much planning: coffee on the porch, a
walk along the community trails, an afternoon toward Ocean Isle or Holden Beach, and dinner
back in Shallotte without making a day of the drive. Solserra is not an island neighborhood
and it is not a golf-course enclave. Its appeal is a quieter kind of coastal life — close to
water, close to town, and easy to live in every day.
Then Monday comes, and the test of a place is whether it still works. Here it
does. The grocery run is five minutes. The doctor is in town. The river is still out there
doing what it does whether or not you have plans.
Four ways to buy at Solserra, and they are not the same purchase
Every portal files Solserra under one heading: a Pulte community. That is true of the phase
under construction today and untrue of the rest of it. There is a Pulte side, a bring-your-own-builder
side, and two categories that are approved on paper and not yet in the ground. Pick the one that
fits and I'll send you live listings.
That flexibility is part of what makes Solserra
unusual. One buyer may want the certainty of a finished Pulte home and an easy move. Another
may have spent years saving ideas for a custom home and finally wants the freedom to build it.
The right section depends less on which one looks best online and more on how you want to live
once the moving truck is gone.
The rebuilt entrance off Gray Bridge Road. New monuments and lighting went in during the reactivation — the first visible sign the project was moving again.
Solserra is the third act for this land. It was approved in 2007 as San Rio, stalled in the
2008 crash, sat platted and half-served by utilities for the better part of fifteen years, and
was bought and relaunched under a new name. That history is not trivia — it is why one section
already has streets, sewer and recorded lots while another is still a line on a site plan.
What follows is how I'd sort it if you were sitting across from me at my Calabash office.
Each section has its own live search attached.
Pulte — Cambridge Collection
Building now
The entry point, and where most of the current activity is. One- and two-story plans on the
older platted lots in the northern section, where the streets and town sewer were already in
the ground. Pulte has roughly 100 homes planned in this first release, with a sales center and
two model homes open.
Homes come through with quartz counters, James Hardie fiber-cement siding, crown molding on
the first floor and owner's suite, soft-close cabinetry and full-yard irrigation. Move-in ready
homes have been delivering with washer, dryer, refrigerator, blinds and gutters included — a
detail worth pricing out, because those five items are usually a five-figure line item after
closing on a builder home.
For many relocation buyers, Cambridge is the "make life simpler" side of
Solserra. The one-level plans give you the rooms you use every day without carrying a larger
house than you need, while the two-story options preserve extra space when family comes to
visit. The appeal is less about a quartz countertop on a feature sheet and more about moving
in, unpacking, and getting on with the coastal life you came here for.
Cambridge plans quoted at Solserra. Verify current pricing and availability with me before you rely on it.
The rail walk along the pond. The palms went in mature enough to read as landscape rather than sticks.The water side. That porch runs most of the building's length — which is what makes it usable in August.
A two-level Cambridge elevation. Hardie siding, two-car garage, front porch deep enough to be useful.
Typical size
1,700 – 2,650 sq ft
Bedrooms
3 – 5
Baths
2 – 3
Stories
One-level and two-story plans
Garage
2-car attached
Builder
PulteGroup
Phase 1 under construction. Lots here run tight — roughly a sixth to a third of an acre — so lot orientation and what backs up to you matters more than usual.
Pulte — Sutton Collection
Larger plans, larger lots
The step up. Wider footprints, centralized open kitchens designed so a room full of people
isn't crowded into one corner, and the three-car garage option that this whole corridor is
short on. If you are coming from a two-acre lot up north and downsizing the house but not the
car collection, this is the collection to look at first.
The Sutton plans are also where the second-story loft shows up as a genuine second living
area rather than a bonus room — useful if you host adult children and grandchildren for weeks
at a time, which most of my buyers in this corridor do.
This is the collection I would show the buyer who says, "We are downsizing,
but we are not disappearing." You can keep the big kitchen where everyone ends up anyway,
have room for guests to stay long enough to feel at home, and still have a primary suite and
everyday living space that works when the house is quiet again on Monday morning.
A covered rear porch tucked under the main roofline — and a mature oak the builder kept rather than cleared. Covered and screened lanais are an option rather than a standard on most plans; in this climate I'd argue it isn't optional, so price it in before you compare.
Typical size
2,179 – 3,205 sq ft
Bedrooms
3 – 4
Baths
2.5
Stories
One-level and two-story with loft
Garage
2-car; 3-car on select plans
Builder
PulteGroup
Notable
Butler's pantry, super shower, gourmet kitchen options
Homesites & custom builds
Bring your own builder
This is the part almost nobody sees, and it is the most interesting thing about Solserra.
Because the community was platted and recorded during the San Rio era, individual lots exist
and change hands independently of the builder program. Lots have traded in the community at
roughly a sixth to a third of an acre, including waterfront and interior corner sites, and
they are being marketed with language that says it plainly: take Pulte's design-build plans,
or bring your own custom builder.
That matters for three kinds of buyer. If you want a plan Pulte doesn't offer, you can get it.
If you want a regional or custom builder you already trust, you can use them. And if you are an
investor or small builder, packages of ready-to-build lots on a single street have come to
market here.
For the right buyer, this is the part of Solserra with the most possibility.
Maybe you have carried the same house ideas through three moves — the deeper porch, the
workshop, the kitchen facing the view, the guest suite that actually gives family privacy.
A platted homesite with utilities and architectural standards gives you a chance to start
with the land and build around the life you want, instead of starting with a builder plan
and adapting yourself to it.
And you are not theorising. True Homes — an outside builder, not part of the Pulte program —
is building on lots in one of the additional sections, on a build-on-your-lot basis.
A finished True Homes build in one of the additional sections. Different builder, different street, same community.
The tradeoffs are real. You are buying into an active construction zone with an eight- to
ten-year build-out ahead of you, architectural review will govern what you can build, and you
need to confirm utility availability lot by lot. The town's sewer in the northern section sat
unused for years and fell into disrepair; the owners pushed for repairs and those were
completed before this section could move forward. I check that history on every lot I write.
The view off a graded pad. This is what a "river view" lot actually looks like today, before anything is built on it.Another pad, looking across the water at Rivers Edge Golf Club — one of a long list of courses scattered through Brunswick County. Views like this change block to block, and change again depending on which trees come down.
A platted lot on a finished street — curb, gutter and utilities already in, marsh beyond the tree line, and a neighbor going up next door. A very different proposition from raw land.
Typical lot size
~0.17 – 0.30 acre
Builders seen here
Pulte, True Homes, or your own
Lot types
Interior, corner, and waterfront
Utilities
Town sewer in the northern section; verify per lot
Governed by
Recorded covenants & architectural review
Also seen
Multi-lot builder packages on one street
Sidewalks run throughout the neighborhood, not just along the main road, and the street lamps are already up. That makes for easy evening walks down to the amenity center — the kind of detail you only notice after living somewhere without it.
Townhomes & multifamily
Approved, not yet built
The PUD approved in May 2025 includes 174 townhomes and 300 multifamily units alongside the
545 single-family homes. None of it is standing today. Planning and engineering work on the
future phases continues, and the developer has said timelines will be driven by demand, sales
pace and permitting.
I'm flagging this for two opposite reasons. If a lock-and-leave townhome is what you actually
want, this is a community to keep on a watch list rather than to shop today — and I'll tell you
the moment they release. If you are buying a single-family home here, you should know what is
entitled to be built around you before you choose a homesite, because a 300-unit multifamily
component is not a small neighbor.
Separately, a 108-home single-family subdivision has been submitted for the southern area
under the older 2011 master plan rather than the new PUD. It is a suburban single-family layout,
and it is a different set of rules from the PUD sections.
The important thing is to buy the Solserra that exists for your timeline —
not the Solserra shown on a ten-year master plan.
The master plan is worth studying before you pick a lot — the phase boundaries explain
almost every price difference inside this community. Ask and I'll send you a copy of the
complete site plan, no obligation.
The amenity center is finished — which is unusual this early
In most new communities in this county the clubhouse is a rendering on a sales office wall and
a line in your dues for three years. At Solserra the Phase 1 amenity center is built, furnished
and open, sitting immediately inside the entrance.
The clubhouse. Screened porch on one side, outdoor fireplace on the other — the two things that make a coastal Carolina clubhouse usable in February and in August.
Ask me what I'd verify first at any new community and the answer is always the same: is the
amenity actually there. Solserra clears that bar. The gathering spaces are indoor and outdoor,
furnished, and adjacent to the entrance rather than buried behind three phases of future
construction, so you can walk it on your first visit instead of taking a rendering on faith.
The value of a finished clubhouse is not the building itself. It is being
able to meet a neighbor on the porch, sit by the outdoor fireplace when the evening
finally cools off, or bring visiting family somewhere that already feels like part of the
neighborhood. In a new community, those shared places are how a collection of new houses
starts to become a place people belong to.
The reactivation also rebuilt the arrival sequence — new entrance monuments and lighting.
Small thing on paper. Not a small thing when you're driving a guest in after dark, or when an
appraiser is forming an impression of the neighborhood.
The future amenity site, signed and rendered on the ground. Pool, pavilion and pickleball — a second, larger amenity coming in alongside the one already open.
The clubhouse is not the end of it. A second amenity site is already signed and staked,
with a pool, a pavilion and pickleball courts shown on the rendering. That matters for the
buyer weighing Solserra against a finished community: what you get on day one is a working
clubhouse, and what's coming is the resort-scale piece most new neighborhoods promise and
deliver years late.
Read the fine print on that sign, though, and it says exactly what I would tell you anyway —
the rendering is conceptual, and the actual amenity may change at the developer's discretion.
Signed and rendered is a long way further along than most communities in this county manage,
but it is not the same as built. Ask me for the current status before you let it swing your
decision.
The Shallotte River. Tidal, fishable, and the reason the master plan orients the way it does.
The river is the whole argument for this location. Three-plus miles of frontage on a tidal
river, fifteen minutes from a boat ramp, with the Shallotte Riverwalk in town for walking. If
you fish or paddle, that is a materially different daily life from a golf-course community
twenty minutes inland.
Even if you never own a boat, water changes the feel of a place. It gives you
open sky, changing light, wildlife, and a reason to step outside at the end of the day. For
buyers moving inland from an island address — or moving south because they want the coast to
become part of ordinary life rather than a two-week event — that setting tends to matter more
over time than one more amenity on a checklist.
Open
Phase 1 amenity center
Furnished indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, built and open, positioned next to the
entrance rather than deep in a future phase.
Open
Clubhouse with rocking chair porch
Porch and an outdoor fireplace. The porch is what makes it usable in a Brunswick
County summer; the fireplace is what makes it usable in January.
Open
Rebuilt entrance
Redesigned monuments and new lighting installed during the reactivation. First thing your
guests see and the first thing an appraiser notices.
Existing
Shallotte River frontage
More than three miles along a tidal river. Fishing from the community's edge; nearest boat
launch about fifteen minutes.
Existing
Walking trails
Trails through the community, plus the Shallotte Riverwalk in town — a genuinely pleasant
walk, and one of the better things the Town of Shallotte has built.
Planned
Community dock & kayak launch
Described in the developer's plan for the community. Confirm current status and whether it
is deeded to your section before you count on it.
Planned
Pool, pavilion & pickleball
A second amenity site is signed and rendered on the ground. The sign's own fine print calls
the rendering conceptual and subject to change — verify status before you rely on it.
Nearby
Golf
Rivers Edge Golf Club is about ten minutes out, with the rest of the Brunswick County golf
corridor within a half hour.
The question everyone asks second
Dues, governance, and what nobody publishes
Solserra is early. That means the association documents matter more than usual, not less —
you are buying into a structure that is still being written, with a developer in control.
Here is what is known, and what I go get for you.
What is known today
Association management is handled by CAMS, with an online homeowner portal
The builder markets the community as having low HOA fees; the actual figure is what matters
Amenity center, clubhouse and common areas are association-maintained
Interior streets are planned to remain private, not town-maintained
Town of Shallotte sewer serves the northern section; water via Brunswick County
The entire project was annexed into the Town of Shallotte in 2025
What I pull before you sign
Current dues, what they cover, and the payment schedule
The declaration, plus any amendments recorded since
Whether your section falls under the PUD or the older 2011 master plan
Architectural guidelines, if you are bringing your own builder
Rental and lease restrictions — these are frequently amended in new communities
Developer control, in plain terms
The property is owned by Stars & Stripes 2I, LLC, a Drapac Capital Partners entity
Early-stage associations are typically developer-controlled until a turnover threshold
Dues in a developer-controlled community can be set below true operating cost
Post-turnover increases are common and are not a scandal — they are arithmetic
Why the internet searches are confusing
San Rio, and the eighteen-year gap
If you have searched this community online and gotten contradictory answers, this timeline is
why. Two names, two master plans, three sets of approvals, and a fifteen-year pause in the middle.
~2007
Approved by the Town of Shallotte as San Rio, a planned residential development from
Wakefield Development. Mixed use in concept. About a third of the property was annexed into
town at that point.
2008
The developer's plans collapse in the downturn. The project goes inactive — like a long list
of Brunswick County communities that same year. Streets, plats and utilities stay in the ground.
2011
A revised master plan is approved: six phases, 2,022 residential units, four units per acre.
Phases one through three, in the northern half, are annexed. This plan is still the governing
document for two of the sections today.
2011–2024
Dormant. The installed town sewer falls into disrepair from non-use. Property changes hands
to Stars & Stripes 2I, LLC, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Drapac Capital Partners.
2024–25
Owners press the town to repair the sewer system; repairs are completed, which is what
unlocks development of the northern section. The community is renamed Solserra.
May 6, 2025
The Shallotte Board of Aldermen unanimously approves the Solserra PUD and annexes the entire
project into town. 1,019 homes across roughly 372 acres — deliberately less dense than the 2011
plan, plus a new 17-acre tract off Tar Landing Road.
Now
Amenity center open. Pulte's models and sales center open. Roughly 100 homes in the first
release, with the balance of the plan projected to take eight to ten years.
The unusual part of Solserra is that you can still see
both versions of its story at once: the street names and infrastructure of the old San Rio plan,
and new homes, new lighting and new residents arriving under the Solserra name. For a buyer, that
means you are not stepping into a finished neighborhood with a settled identity. You are arriving
while that identity is still being formed — which is either the appeal or the drawback, depending
entirely on who you are.
Timeline compiled from
Town of Shallotte planning records and Brunswick Beacon reporting on the May 2025 approval. If you
are comparing this against something you read on a national portal and it disagrees, bring it to me —
that is exactly the kind of thing I'd rather sort out before you're under contract.
Getting around
Off Gray Bridge Road, five minutes from everything in Shallotte
Solserra sits just south of town off Gray Bridge Road, which puts groceries, the hospital
campus and Highway 17 inside a five-minute drive while keeping the community off the highway.
Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center. For buyers relocating from out of state this is often the first thing checked and the last thing a listing page mentions.
The Shallotte Riverwalk downtown. Sixteen acres the town assembled parcel by parcel over more than a decade, opened in 2021.
Shallotte is the practical center of this end of the county. It is where the grocery stores,
the big-box retail, the medical offices and the everyday errands are — which is why buyers who
start out set on an island address so often end up here. You are ten miles from Ocean Isle,
nine from Holden Beach, and you are not crossing a bridge to buy milk.
That is the tradeoff Solserra gets right for a lot of buyers. The beach can
be where you spend the afternoon without also being where you buy groceries, see a doctor,
meet a contractor and run every errand. Sand between your toes at Ocean Isle, and a
neighborhood that still functions easily on an ordinary Tuesday.
The town has also spent real money on its own waterfront. The Riverwalk and the riverfront
town center project are the reason downtown Shallotte in 2026 is not the downtown Shallotte
of 2010.
Sunset from the boardwalk. The gazebo at the far end is the natural turnaround on an evening walk.The boardwalk runs out over the water — marsh on one side, the channel on the other.Looking upriver — the same water that runs past Solserra a few miles downstream.
Downtown Shallotte & everyday errands
~5 min
Shallotte Crossing shopping
~5 min
US 17
~5 min
Rivers Edge Golf Club
~10 min
Nearest boat launch
~15 min
Holden Beach
~9 miles
Ocean Isle Beach
~10 miles
Oak Island
~20 miles
Wilmington
~36 miles
Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center
~15 min
Myrtle Beach International Airport
~45 min
Distances approximate and measured
from the community entrance. Drive times vary considerably in season — a summer Saturday on
Holden Beach Road is a different road than a Tuesday in February.
Roads that are changing because of this project
This is the part
buyers never ask about and every current resident cares about. The approved traffic study committed
the developer to phased road improvements:
Phase 1: northbound right-turn lane at Red Bug Road and US 17; westbound right-turn lane at Holden Beach Road and Red Bug Road; and a new signal at Holden Beach Road and Red Bug Road, clustered with the existing signal at Gray Bridge Road.
Phase 2: eastbound right-turn lane at Holden Beach Road and Gray Bridge Road, plus monitoring for a signal at San Rio Boulevard.
Phase 3: the San Rio Boulevard signal if it wasn't warranted earlier; remaining work is largely interior and private.
Streets you'll see in the listings
The Caribbean naming convention is
left over from the San Rio plan and never changed. If you're cross-referencing an address from a
portal, these are inside Solserra:
San Rio Boulevard SW
Paradise Bay Boulevard
Glitter Bay Loop
La Mer Loop
Kalik Circle
Castries Drive
Discovery Bay Road
Rendezvous Bay Drive
Not a complete list, and new streets
are being recorded as phases plat. Ask me if you're unsure whether an address falls inside the
community.
The honest version
Who Solserra fits, and who it doesn't
I would rather tell you this now than three tours from now. Solserra is a genuinely good
answer for some buyers and a genuinely poor one for others, and the difference has nothing
to do with the quality of the homes.
Worth a closer look if
You want coastal access without living on the island and handling island logistics
New construction matters to you, but you want more than one way to buy into it
The river setting matters to you as much as the house does
You need room for visiting family — not a guest room, actual room
You have been carrying a custom home in your head and want the land to start from
You like the idea of arriving while a community is still taking shape
Probably not the right fit if
You want a finished neighborhood with mature landscaping and settled neighbors today
Years of nearby construction traffic, noise and dust would wear on you
You are counting on a future amenity or water-access feature that hasn't been delivered
You want a townhome or a lock-and-leave attached home right now
You need certainty about exactly what gets built next to you and when
An HOA still under developer control is a dealbreaker for you
Notice that most of the second column is about timing rather than quality.
That is the honest summary of Solserra right now — a good community arriving in stages, where
the answer changes depending on which section you're standing in and what year you need it to
be finished.
Which is why I look at this place lot by lot and section by section. The answer
can change inside the same entrance.
Questions I get about Solserra
Is Solserra the same place as San Rio?
Yes. Solserra is the renamed and relaunched San Rio, approved by the Town of Shallotte back
around 2007 and inactive from the 2008 downturn until recently. The street names, the recorded
plats and the boulevard at the entrance still carry the San Rio name. If you find old San Rio
listings, lot maps or forum posts, you are looking at the same land under its former identity —
and often at information that is fifteen years out of date.
Is Solserra a Pulte community?
Partly, and this is the single most common error on the national portals. PulteGroup is the
builder for the first phase — roughly 100 homes, with models and a sales center open. The land
itself is owned and being developed by Stars & Stripes 2I, LLC, a Drapac Capital Partners
entity, and the approved plan runs to more than a thousand homes across multiple sections.
Other sections are open to other builders — True Homes is building on lots in one of them on a
build-on-your-lot basis — and lots here have been marketed with the explicit option to bring
your own custom builder.
Can I buy a lot and use my own builder?
In some sections, yes. Lots have been offered in Solserra with the option to use Pulte's
design-build program or bring your own builder, including waterfront and corner sites and, at
times, multi-lot packages for builders and investors. What you can build is governed by the
recorded covenants and architectural review for your specific section, and utility availability
needs to be confirmed lot by lot. Do not assume from one lot listing that the rule applies
community-wide — ask me to check the section.
Is Solserra a 55+ or age-restricted community?
No. It is an all-ages community zoned to Brunswick County Schools — Supply Elementary,
Shallotte Middle and West Brunswick High. Several relocation directories file everything in this
corridor under retirement living, which is misleading. If age-restricted living is genuinely
what you want, I can point you to the communities in Brunswick County that actually are.
Are the townhomes and apartments already there?
No. The PUD approved in May 2025 entitles 174 townhomes and 300 multifamily units alongside 545
single-family homes, but none of that is built. Future phases are in planning and engineering,
with timing driven by demand and permitting. This cuts both ways: if you want a townhome here you
are waiting, and if you are buying a single-family homesite you should know what is entitled to
be built near you before you choose the lot.
What is actually on the river? Can I keep a boat?
The property has more than three miles of Shallotte River frontage, and the developer's plan
describes a community dock and kayak launch. Treat that as planned rather than delivered until
you have stood on it. River frontage on a master plan is not the same as deeded water access
from your lot, and neither is the same as a boat slip. Nearest public launch is roughly fifteen
minutes. I ask this question in writing on every waterfront-adjacent purchase.
How's the resale market here?
Too early for meaningful resale data — almost everything that has traded is new construction
from the builder. What I can give you is the comparable picture: absorption, days on market and
closed pricing for competing new-construction communities in the Shallotte and Ocean Isle
corridor, which is the honest way to price a home in a community with no resale history. Ask me
for the current snapshot; it's free and there's no obligation attached.
A new home purchase is exciting
because so much of it still feels possible. The lot is not landscaped yet. The neighbors may not
have moved in. The view from the porch is still something you are imagining. My job is to help
you protect that excitement with the right questions before you sign — so the home you picture
on tour is still the home you are glad you chose after the first year.
I sold new construction for the builders. Now I work for you.
With almost 30 years in the real estate industry, and a long stretch of it working on the
sales teams for home builders such as Bill Clark Homes, Stevens Fine Homes, D.R. Horton,
Wade Jurney Homes, Portrait Homes, Centex Homes and Beazer Homes, I know how homesite
premiums get priced,
where the good lots in a phase are, and which upgrades hold their value at resale and which
never come back.
I moved to the Brunswick County coast 20 years ago to help build these communities because
I wanted the same life many of my clients want now — a chance to buy my dream home just
minutes from the beach. After years on the builder side of the business, I've learned that
the best home isn't always the newest home, the biggest home or even the house with the
longest upgrade list. It's the one that fits the life you're actually moving here to have.
Registering me on your first visit costs you nothing and changes nothing about your price.
Walking in without representation and signing a builder's contract on your second visit is
how buyers end up with the wrong lot at the right price.