Situated near Loretto Elementary School, the gated, upscale neighborhood is one of the area’s first new communities in years. Populated with live oaks and long-leaf pines throughout the sprawling 20-acre area, Red’s Gait will be home to contemporary houses starting in the $300s. Providence Homes will offer 6 floorplans, which have optional bonus rooms and multiple elevations, ranging from the 2,471-square-foot, 4-bedroom, 3-bath Palmetto with its large family room and covered patio to the palatial 3,436-square-foot, 5-bedroom Bayport with its gorgeous loft and private Internet center. Each homesite will feature spectacular landscaping, while the home interiors will be elegantly adorned with Providence Homes’ signature detailing and superior construction.

“The desire for spacious lots in this beautifully wooded area has been so great in Mandarin,” said Providence Homes Site Agent Ellie Cuthrell. “There hasn’t been much construction in the $300,000 to $500,000 range here, and we’ve already sold 25% of our homesites within the first two weeks.”

Long before Mandarin became one of Jacksonville’s most desirable places to live, it was filled with pristine swamps, pastures, and forested land that Jim Arnold and his brothers hunted, raced, roped, and rode through atop their beloved American Quarter Horse – Red.

Born at the world-famous King Ranch in Texas in 1951, the beautiful red chestnut gelding with the solid white blaze and white stocking on his right hind leg was bought by the Arnold family in 1957. Described by Jim Arnold as “extremely fast,” “his best friend,” and “one of the first outstanding quarter horses in North Florida,” Red and the then 16-year-old Arnold were seen by his neighbors and friends as inseparable.

Before his death in 1978, Red gaited through vast expanses of Jacksonville that are now hard to imagine as ever having been unsettled. One such area is the land where part of Loretto Elementary School now stands, a former piece of the Arnolds’ family farm that was donated to the School Board to provide children living in the Loretto, Bayard and Mandarin areas with a better school. Another possible location that Red once rode through is the 4600 block of Sunbeam Road occupied by Providence Homes’ corporate headquarters.

Preserving Red’s and the Arnolds’ sense of freedom and love for wide open spaces were of utmost concern when the family farm was sold in 2003 to local developer Greg Matovina, founder of Matovina & Co. To honor the horse for which the community is named, Matovina will erect a life-size bronze statue of Red that greet residents as they enter the neighborhood.

“I think that Red’s spirit is an integral part of the land,” Arnold said. “I can only hope that families living where he once rode will enjoy it as much as we did.”