Hillwood Closes 618 Acres for $1.2B Lantern Community Near Pilot Point

Hillwood Closes 618 Acres for the $1.2B Lantern Project

Hillwood, the development firm led by Ross Perot Jr., has completed the purchase of 618 acres near Pilot Point for Lantern, a planned 2,000-home community north of Fort Worth. The seller was the McCutchin family, a long-established North Texas family with ranching and energy holdings. Denton County approved a tax increment reinvestment zone for the $1.2 billion project in January.

Alongside the single-family homes, Lantern’s plans include retail space, apartment complexes and dedicated green space. The property is expected to eventually be annexed into Pilot Point’s city limits, which would bring the development under the small city’s land-use and service umbrella.

Hillwood senior vice president Brian Carlock said the site was appealing for its scale and its location near employers and fast-growing suburban communities such as Celina. Because the North Texas market currently has a housing surplus, Hillwood plans to wait up to a year before starting construction so that the oversupply can be absorbed.

The acquisition is the third land transaction between Hillwood and the McCutchin family, following Hillwood’s 1987 purchase of Hunter Ranch land and a later purchase for the Union Park development in Little Elm.

Why Hillwood Is Buying Now but Building Later

Why Hillwood Is Buying Now but Delaying Construction

The decision to close on the land while holding construction for up to a year is a demand-timing strategy, not a lack of confidence. By securing the site and its approved tax increment reinvestment zone now, Hillwood locks in a major entitled land position near a fast-growing corridor without immediately adding 2,000 homes to a market it acknowledges is oversupplied. The trade-off is that land carrying costs continue during the delay, but the developer is betting those costs are smaller than the risk of building into a saturated buyer pool.

What the McCutchin Relationship Means for the Deal

This is the third time the two parties have transacted, including Hillwood’s 1987 Hunter Ranch purchase and a parcel for Union Park in Little Elm. A repeat landowner relationship can shorten negotiation and due diligence, but the more important signal is access: large contiguous land parcels in North Texas are increasingly scarce, and long-standing family-held acreage is often the only source for communities of this size.

How Lantern Fits Into Hillwood’s Wider North Texas Pipeline

Lantern sits alongside Hillwood’s much larger Landmark project in Denton, a $10 billion master-planned community the firm calls a “city within a city” that is expected to add 25,000 residents and 1,100 acres of parkland. Hillwood is also moving slowly on a separate 1,110-acre plan in Lockhart. The common thread is scale and patience: the company is assembling large positions in high-growth Texas submarkets, then phasing construction to match demand rather than building on a fixed schedule.

What Lantern Means for Pilot Point, Builders and DFW Homebuyers

• For Pilot Point and Denton County officials: plan annexation infrastructure against a 2,000-home, retail and apartment footprint, but expect no construction starts for up to a year under Hillwood’s stated delay.
• For builders and contractors: do not schedule lot-ready work at Lantern based on the land closing; Hillwood says construction waits up to a year for oversupply to wane.
• For prospective DFW homebuyers: Lantern will not add near-term inventory in the Celina/Pilot Point corridor, so treat it as a later-cycle option while current new-home supply remains available.
• For nearby developers and landowners: the purchase shows large North Texas land deals can still close during an oversupply, but Hillwood is tying construction timing to absorption rather than moving straight from acquisition to building.