A description of Greely sounds more like a sales pitch for a family holiday resort than the description of a small community 30 minutes sourth of Ottawa.. Llamas. horse stables, two manmade lakes, parks, tennis courts and a sandy beach.

In Osgoode township between Manotick to the west and Bank Street (Highway 31) to the east, Greely is home to about 2,000.

Very much a country setting, the sprawling development is dotted with thick stands of mature trees and open green spaces. Recreation in the family-oriented community is plentiful with soccer fields, hockey rinks and two golf courses. There's an annual winter carnival, an amateur theatre group and a provincial champion skipping team known as the Greely Grasshoppers.

Quick access to Highway 31 and nearby Albion Road makes commuting to jobs in downtown Ottawa easy. Al Page, who moved to Greely in 1982, says it used to take him 45 minutes to an hour to get to his job in Montreal from his west island home. Now, he breezes into work at Bell on Elgin Street in just 20 minutes.

Gerry Lavimodiere, of John Gerard homes, says it's this close proximity to the city that's luring home buyers to Greely. "It's so close to town," says Mr. Lavimodiere, who along with partner John Crandlemire, have built approximately 400 homes in the area since 1988. "The access is so great. It's really fast."

Compared to other new suburban communities, you won't find postage-stamp yards and rows of cloned homes sandwiched together in any of the Greely subdivisions.

Larger and grander, most of the houses are custom-built and come on half- to two-acre lots.

"Your next-door neighbour isn't exactly on your doorstep," says Dwayne Acres, one of four Osgoode councillors. "There's lots of space." And where else could you find such exotic animals as reindeer, llamas and elk roaming your backyard?

Mr. Anderson, an Ottawa lawyer and father of four, says Greely is an ideal family community with areas that are patterned after waterfront development in Arizona, Texas and Florida.

To avoid the cookie-cutter syndrome plaguing some new subdivisions, building designs must be innovative. "We want people to give some thought and come up with a sound design," he says of the architectural controls.