Starfall Landing

Starfall Landing at a glance

Starfall Landing is not a master-planned neighborhood in the usual sense. It is a small, very private land development of roughly ten large parcels off Belotes Bend Road, with the homesites strung along East Robertson Road in Castalian Springs (37031), the northeast corner of Sumner County. Think estate-acreage building lots rather than a built-out subdivision with sidewalks and a clubhouse: parcels here run from about five acres to ten-plus, several have been soil-tested and perked for a four-bedroom home, and buyers generally purchase the land and build. Because the plat is so small, real turnover is rare, and you should treat the exact lot count and any individual lot details as something to confirm against the recorded plat at the Sumner County Register of Deeds rather than from marketing copy.

On the water, Starfall Landing sits on the upper, river-like arm of Old Hickory Lake, well upstream of Old Hickory Dam and toward Cordell Hull near Carthage. This stretch is the impounded Cumberland River, which is why listings interchangeably call it "Old Hickory Lake" and "Cumberland River" — both are accurate, but the water here looks and behaves more like a wide main-channel river than the broad open basin you find downstream at Hendersonville. The lake relationship is per-lot private shoreline, not a shared community dock, ramp, or marina (none is advertised, and none was found). Frontage parcels in this pocket have been marketed with figures like roughly 400 feet of water access and a "walk down to the water's edge." Important honesty point: not every lot here necessarily touches the water — at least one adjacent parcel was marketed as offering waterfront "views" rather than deeded frontage — so confirm true shoreline contact lot-by-lot on the survey and plat before assuming a given parcel is waterfront.

On price, Starfall Landing is a land play first. Vacant waterfront and water-access lots in this stretch have been listed roughly in the low-$200s to high-$500s depending on size and frontage, with one larger riverfront parcel asking near the $400s; the cleanest recorded comps in the immediate area are older (a ~5.5-acre view parcel sold in the mid-2022 mid-$280s, and an earlier vacant-land sale in 2021), so current pricing is best understood as illustrative, not a fixed price sheet. You'll also see talk of finished estate homes in the high-$700s to $1M-plus — treat that as a forward projection of land plus custom construction, since no closed sale of a finished home inside Starfall Landing was found. Several parcels in this pocket have traded through estate and auction channels rather than clean arms-length MLS sales, which is one more reason to lean on current data for the specific lot. The area draws buyers who want privacy, room for a barn or outbuildings, and a quiet, rural, big-acreage life on the upper end of the lake — and who are comfortable trading a real 45-minute-plus commute to downtown Nashville for that. For live pricing and what's actually available, call us at 615-265-1000.

Which lots actually reach the water

Here is the most important thing to understand about Starfall Landing: there is no community dock, no shared marina, no deeded-access ramp, and no slip pool. This is not that kind of place. It is a small, very private development of roughly ten large parcels strung off Belotes Bend Road, with the homesites addressed along East Robertson Road in Castalian Springs (37031). Water access is per lot and private — the waterfront parcels carry their own shoreline frontage directly on the impounded Cumberland (the upper, river-like arm of Old Hickory Lake), measured in the hundreds of feet rather than a shared cove. One listing in the enclave advertised almost 400 feet of Old Hickory/Cumberland River frontage on an roughly 8-acre lot with a 'walk down to the water's edge.' So when a Starfall Landing lot reaches the water, it reaches it as your own private shoreline — not as a key to a shared dock.

But — and this is where honesty matters — not every parcel in and around this stretch is true frontage, and frontage is not the same thing as a usable, permitted dock. At least one nearby East Robertson Road parcel was marketed as 'waterfront VIEWS' (with hundreds of feet of view but a different relationship to the actual shoreline), which is a meaningful distinction from deeded frontage you can walk down to. Because Old Hickory is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir, a private dock requires a Corps (Nashville District) shoreline-use permit, the shoreline has to fall in a dock-eligible classification under the 2020 Old Hickory Lake Shoreline Management Plan, and on this narrower upper-river reach steep banks, shallow or fluctuating water, and the navigation channel can make a lot perfectly buildable yet not dock-permittable. Frontage alone does not guarantee dock rights. We have not verified a recorded plat lot-by-lot, so the right move is to confirm the exact lake relationship of any specific lot against its survey and the Corps shoreline map before you pay a waterfront premium.

• True private waterfront (own shoreline): The marketed waterfront lots along E Robertson Rd — for example the roughly 8-acre parcel (1113 E Robertson Rd) advertised with almost 400 ft of Old Hickory/Cumberland frontage and a walk-down to the water's edge. This is the signature profile here: large-acreage estate lots with private frontage, not shared access.
• Lot with an existing dock (verify the permit): 1113 E Robertson Rd has been marketed as already having a boat dock/slip in place — rare and valuable on this lake. Treat that as a selling point, not proof: confirm it is an actively permitted USACE facility and whether the permit can transfer to you. Important: an existing dock's permit is NOT automatically transferred to a new owner — you must apply.
• Water-VIEW (not necessarily frontage): At least one nearby E Robertson Rd parcel was described as 'waterfront views' rather than deeded shoreline. View lots can be beautiful and quieter on price, but do not assume you can walk to your own shore or build a dock from one. Confirm shoreline contact on the survey.
• Interior / build-to-suit acreage: Several Starfall Landing lots are sold raw — utility-district water available, septic required, with parcels reported perked and soil-tested for a 4-bedroom home. An interior or set-back lot may have no shoreline contact at all even within the same development.
• No shared/community water amenity: No community dock, ramp, clubhouse, or marina was found for Starfall Landing. (A 'shared dock / private walkway' description that shows up in some online search snippets belongs to a different, unrelated Castalian Springs listing — it is not Starfall Landing.) Full-service slips and fuel are at independent Shady Cove RV Resort & Marina nearby, not part of the subdivision.

Docks & the Army Corps reality

Here is the single most important thing to understand before you fall in love with a Starfall Landing lot: owning waterfront does not automatically mean you can build a dock. Old Hickory is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) reservoir — the impounded Cumberland River — managed out of the Corps' Nashville District. A private dock requires a Corps shoreline-use permit, and the parcel's shoreline has to fall in a dock-eligible allocation (a class such as Limited Development Area) under the 2020 Old Hickory Lake Shoreline Management Plan. Frontage alone confers no dock rights. The Corps itself notes that some shorelines simply are not practical for floating docks because of steep bluffs, narrow coves, shallow water, or impacts to navigation — and Starfall Landing sits on the upper, river-like arm of the lake at Belotes Bend, exactly the kind of narrower, river-influenced reach where bank, depth, and channel conditions can make a lot perfectly buildable yet not dock-permittable. It is also worth knowing that an existing dock's permit is not automatically transferred when a property changes hands; the new owner generally has to apply in their own name.

On the specifics here: Starfall Landing is a small enclave of roughly ten large private-shoreline lots off Belotes Bend Road, addressed along East Robertson Road. It is individual waterfront — there is no community dock, marina, ramp, or shared-slip arrangement (none is advertised, and none was found in our research). One parcel, the ~8-acre 1113 E Robertson Rd, has been marketed as having a boat dock/slip already in place — a real selling point, but one we treat as unconfirmed until the actual USACE permit is produced and its transferability is established. Just as important: do not assume the dock situation on that one lot tells you anything about the other nine. Dock eligibility on a Corps reservoir is parcel-specific, and at least one nearby parcel in this pocket was marketed as 'waterfront views' rather than deeded frontage. Every lot here needs its own answer to two questions — does it actually touch the water, and is that shoreline classed for a dock — confirmed directly with the Old Hickory Lake Resource Managers office before you write an offer. For broader context on this stretch of the reservoir, see Old Hickory Lake.

The market here

Starfall Landing is a micro-market, and it's important to read it as one. This is a small, private development of roughly ten large lots off Belotes Bend Road, with homesites addressed along East Robertson Road in Castalian Springs (37031). With so few parcels, there is almost no transaction volume here, and any single sale can swing what looks like a "comp." Treat the numbers below as illustrative of the tier, not as a fixed price sheet. The pricing here is fundamentally land-driven: these are large-acreage waterfront and water-access parcels (examples in the immediate stretch have run roughly 5 to 10-plus acres) that you buy, then build on. Several have been soil-tested and perked for four-bedroom septic, with city/utility-district water available. Recent recorded sales we found in this E Robertson Road pocket are older and sparse: a 5.49-acre parcel marketed as having waterfront views sold around $285,000 in spring 2022, and an earlier vacant-land sale closed near $140,000 in 2021. More recent activity has shown up as active land asks in the low $400s for a roughly 5-acre waterfront lot, and high-$500s for the larger ~8-acre frontage parcel. The most recent recorded closed sale we found in this E Robertson Road pocket is from spring 2022, and we located no recorded closed sales for the immediate enclave from 2023 onward in public aggregators, so the active asks above are best read as a proxy for current pricing rather than recent closed transactions. We can pull the current closed comps and what's actually active the day you're looking — call 615-265-1000.

Two honest caveats shape this market. First, the "estate" tier you'll hear quoted (think custom homes in the $700s to $1M-plus) is a forward, build-out expectation — land in the $400s plus a custom build — not a demonstrated record. We found no closed sale of a finished home inside Starfall Landing itself, so there is no proven finished-home price or price-per-square-foot here yet; we won't predict one for you. Second, some parcels in this E Robertson Road pocket have traded through estate or auction channels rather than clean, arms-length MLS sales, which can distort comparisons — and aggregator sites have at times grouped non-Starfall listings under the same page, so any comp should be confirmed to actually sit on Belotes Bend / E Robertson within the subdivision. Turnover is inherently very low simply because there are so few lots. As for current inventory and days on market, those are live figures — we pull the real, up-to-the-day data from RealTracs MLS for the specific parcel you're considering rather than relying on stale aggregator snapshots.

The HOA & what it covers

Starfall Landing reads as a small, rural land subdivision rather than an amenitized, master-planned community: roughly 10 large parcels off Belotes Bend Road, with homesites strung along E Robertson Road, sold mostly as acreage to build on. Across every source we reviewed, no HOA, dues amount, or recorded covenants surfaced for Starfall Landing, and there is no community pool, clubhouse, gate, or shared marina. Important honesty caveat: all of that comes from real-estate aggregator marketing copy, not from an authoritative governing document, so we treat governance here as unconfirmed rather than as a verified "no HOA." For a tiny rural plat like this, any homeowners' association is often minimal or nonexistent, but a buyer should not assume either way.

Whatever you find, the structure matters because these are individual private-shoreline lots, not a shared-dock arrangement. There is no club or marina membership tied to the subdivision; the nearest full-service marina, Shady Cove RV Resort & Marina on the Bates Branch embayment, is an independent business minutes away, not a community amenity you'd join through Starfall Landing. If there is any HOA or road-maintenance arrangement, its most likely job on a plat like this is shared private-road upkeep rather than recreation. Pull the recorded plat and any covenants from the Sumner County Register of Deeds before you write an offer so you know exactly what, if anything, governs the lots.

What to request before buying

• The recorded plat and any CC&Rs (deed restrictions/covenants) for Starfall Landing — confirm whether an HOA exists at all, and if so, the dues, what they cover, and any architectural or build restrictions.
• Any private-road maintenance agreement: who maintains E Robertson Road access and on what cost-sharing basis, since rural lots often rely on a shared-road arrangement rather than a full HOA.
• Build readiness in writing — soil/perc results for a septic system (some parcels here were marketed as soil-tested for a 4-bedroom home) and confirmation of utility-district water availability for the specific lot.
• USACE dock eligibility, lot by lot — confirm with the Old Hickory Lake Resource Managers office (615-822-4846 / 615-847-2395) whether your parcel's shoreline is dock-eligible and, if a dock is advertised as already in place, whether that USACE permit is on file and transferable. Frontage alone does not guarantee dock rights, and a permit is not automatically transferred to a new owner.
• FEMA flood zone and the USACE flowage-easement/flood line for your intended building site, since this is the river-influenced upper arm of the reservoir.

Amenities & community life

Be clear-eyed about what Starfall Landing is: a small, very private enclave of roughly ten large lots off Belotes Bend Road, strung along East Robertson Road in Castalian Springs. It is an estate-lot, build-your-own-place setting — not a master-planned, amenitized subdivision. Across every source we reviewed, there is no community pool, clubhouse, fitness center, tennis or pickleball courts, gated entry, or shared community dock or marina. The draw here is privacy, acreage, and your own stretch of shoreline rather than a slate of shared amenities. If amenities are a priority, that is worth weighing honestly against the wide-open, low-density character of this far-eastern arm of Old Hickory Lake.

We could not locate any recorded HOA, dues schedule, or covenants for Starfall Landing — for a roughly ten-lot rural land subdivision, a formal association may be minimal or nonexistent, but that is not confirmed. If shared road maintenance, build restrictions, or any architectural standards matter to you, have us pull the recorded plat and any CC&Rs from the Sumner County Register of Deeds before you commit. Treat the lot count and lot details as marketing figures until verified against the county record.

Where this address shines is the public and nearby amenities, which carry the day-to-day lake life:

• Shady Cove RV Resort & Marina — minutes away on the Bates Branch embayment, with covered wet slips (boats to roughly 80 feet), a 24/7 self-service non-ethanol fuel dock, a seasonal lakeside restaurant and tiki bar with live music, a pool, ship store, and RV pads and cabins. It is independent of the subdivision (not a membership tied to the lots), but it is the closest full-service boating hub.
• Bledsoe Creek State Park — a nearby Old Hickory Lake state park with hiking and lakeside trails, camping, and excellent birding, developed by the Corps as part of the original dam project.
• Public boat ramps dot this end of the lake (including the Gallatin Steam Plant ramp), with numerous additional USACE and TWRA ramps around the reservoir for trailering in.

The lots themselves are big and rural enough to be their own amenity — neighboring parcels along this stretch include classic barns and outbuildings (a 50x52 barn appears on more than one listing), and there is room for the kind of acreage lifestyle you cannot get downstream in tighter Hendersonville neighborhoods. Just know the trade: this is the quiet, agrarian, upper-river end of Old Hickory, well away from the boutique-and-marina density closer to town, so daily errands, dining, and the commute corridors are a real drive rather than a quick hop.

Schools

Starfall Landing sits in Sumner County Schools, the district that serves all of Castalian Springs and Gallatin. Here is the catch worth knowing up front: although the mailing address reads "Castalian Springs," the parcels along E Robertson Road and Belotes Bend Road are zoned to Gallatin feeder schools, not to Castalian Springs Elementary. RealTracs MLS data for homes on these exact streets indicates a Gallatin feeder pattern of Benny C. Bills Elementary to Joe Shafer Middle School, but the only authoritative source is the Sumner County Schools address lookup (InfoFinder) — verify the specific parcel before relying on school assignment in a purchase decision.

The high school assignment follows that same Gallatin feeder pattern up to Gallatin High School, though the high-school field was not consistently populated in the listing data we reviewed, so treat it as the likely zoning rather than the confirmed one. Because Old Hickory school boundaries can be redrawn (Sumner County approved a rezoning in 2026 that reshuffled several zones elsewhere in the county, none of which touched the Belotes Bend / E Robertson area), the only reliable way to lock in your assigned schools is to look up the specific parcel by its street address before you buy.

• Elementary: Benny C. Bills Elementary School (Gallatin)
• Middle: Joe Shafer Middle School (Gallatin)
• High: Gallatin High School (likely zoning per the feeder pattern — confirm by address)
• District: Sumner County Schools

Location & getting around

Starfall Landing sits at the far upper, northeast end of Old Hickory Lake, off Belotes Bend Road with its handful of large parcels strung along East Robertson Road in Castalian Springs (37031), Sumner County. This is the riverine arm of the reservoir: well upstream of Old Hickory Dam, the lake here reads more like a wide main-channel river than the broad open-water basin you find downstream at Hendersonville. It is still inside the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Old Hickory Lake project, so the same federal shoreline rules apply, but the look and feel is quieter, narrower, and more agrarian than the busier marina stretches to the south. The nearest full-service boating hub is Shady Cove RV Resort & Marina on the Bates Branch embayment, just minutes away, with covered wet slips, a self-service non-ethanol fuel dock, a seasonal lakeside restaurant, and a pool. Public ramps on this end of the lake include the Gallatin Steam Plant ramp, and additional USACE/TWRA ramps are scattered around the reservoir.

Be honest with yourself about the drive: this is one of the farther-out Old Hickory communities, not a quick hop to the city. Plan on roughly 45 minutes or more to downtown Nashville and about 50 minutes to Nashville International Airport (BNA). The typical route runs out East Robertson/Belotes Bend to US-31E or TN-25 into Gallatin, then southwest on SR-386 (Vietnam Veterans Parkway) toward Hendersonville and on to I-65 and Briley Parkway for downtown and the airport. The nearest hospital is Highpoint Health - Sumner with Ascension Saint Thomas (the former Sumner Regional Medical Center) on Hartsville Pike in Gallatin, roughly 15 to 20 minutes away via TN-25; TriStar Hendersonville Medical Center is farther southwest. Always confirm live drive times in a mapping app for the exact lot, since they shift with traffic on the SR-386 corridor.

History & character

Be clear-eyed about what Starfall Landing is and isn't. The subdivision itself is small and modern: a private cluster of roughly ten large lots off Belotes Bend Road, with homesites strung along East Robertson Road in Castalian Springs (37031). It reads less like a master-planned neighborhood and more like a land play — big acreage parcels (commonly cited in the five- to ten-acre range), sold largely as raw or build-ready ground with utility-district water available and septic required, several reportedly soil-tested for a four-bedroom home. We could not pin down the developer or the year it was platted from primary county records, so treat the founding era and the exact lot count as details to confirm against the recorded plat at the Sumner County Register of Deeds rather than as settled facts.

Where the real depth lies is the ground it sits on. Castalian Springs is one of the most historically dense corners of Middle Tennessee. The mineral springs at Bledsoe's Lick drew people for thousands of years; a Mississippian-period mound village once stood here and is preserved today as the Castalian Springs Mounds State Archaeological Area. General James Winchester acquired Bledsoe's Station in 1797 and built Cragfont nearby around the turn of the 19th century, and Wynnewood — built 1828–1830 as a stagecoach inn on the old Knoxville-to-Nashville road — is the largest surviving log structure in Tennessee. The community took its present name in 1837, after the Castalian spring of Greek myth. Old Hickory Lake itself is the younger story: the Cumberland River was impounded by the USACE Old Hickory Dam (completed 1954), and nearby Bledsoe Creek became a state park in 1973. The honest framing: a buyer here lives amid genuinely rich regional history and at the quiet, rural, big-acreage upper end of the lake — but none of these landmarks belongs to the Starfall Landing parcels specifically, so we won't claim any historic event happened on the lots themselves.

Buying a lake home here from out of state

Starfall Landing is an unusual lake buy, and that shapes the whole relocation playbook. This is a very small, private enclave of roughly ten large parcels off Belotes Bend Road, addressed along E Robertson Road in Castalian Springs (37031), and most of what trades here is land you build on rather than a finished house ready to tour. It sits on the upper, river-like arm of the Old Hickory impoundment near Gallatin and Castalian Springs, well upstream of the wide open-water basin at Hendersonville, so the water reads more like a broad main-channel river than the lower lake. Listing copy in this pocket uses 'Old Hickory Lake' and 'Cumberland River' interchangeably; both are accurate because this is the impounded Cumberland, but a buyer picturing the wide downstream lake should understand the difference before falling for the photos. For an out-of-state buyer, that means step one is a live video walk of the actual parcel and its shoreline, the road and access, and the surrounding agrarian setting, so what you see matches what you sign for.

The single most important verification is the dock. Old Hickory is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Nashville District) reservoir, and a private dock requires a USACE shoreline-use permit; frontage alone never guarantees one. Whether a given lot is dock-eligible depends on how its shoreline is classified under the 2020 Old Hickory Lake Shoreline Management Plan, and on this narrower upper arm, steep banks, shallow or fluctuating water, and navigation constraints can leave a parcel perfectly buildable but not dock-permittable. One Starfall Landing parcel has been marketed as already having a boat dock or slip in place, which would point to an existing permitted facility, but that is a selling point, not proof, and a Corps permit does not automatically transfer to the new owner, so the buyer typically must reapply. We treat dock eligibility, existing-permit status, and transferability as a confirm-before-you-buy item on every lot, verified directly with the Old Hickory Lake Resource Managers office (615-822-4846 / 615-847-2395), and we never assume one lot's dock applies to its neighbor. From there the rest of the diligence stacks up: confirm true shoreline contact versus water-view only on the survey and plat (at least one nearby parcel was marketed as 'views'); a home inspection if a residence is involved, or soil, septic perk, and well/utility-water confirmation if you are building; the FEMA flood zone and the USACE flowage-easement line for the specific building site on this river-influenced reach, plus the insurance that implies; and any recorded covenants, road-maintenance terms, or HOA at the Sumner County Register of Deeds (none was documented in our research, so it must be checked, not assumed). Zoned schools fall in a Gallatin feeder pattern despite the Castalian Springs mailing address, and should be confirmed by address with Sumner County Schools (verify via the district InfoFinder / (615) 451-5200). We handle remote closing logistics so you can sign from out of state, and we represent buyers in lake and new-construction purchases at no cost to you.

Who it fits

Starfall Landing is a particular kind of place, and being honest about that up front saves everyone time. This is a tiny, rural enclave of roughly ten large-acreage lots off Belotes Bend Road, addressed along E Robertson Road in Castalian Springs, on the upper, river-like arm of Old Hickory Lake. Most parcels sell as raw land in the low-to-mid hundreds of thousands, soil-tested and ready for a custom build with city water available and a septic system required. So it fits the buyer who wants to build their own waterfront home on real acreage and privacy, who values room for a barn or outbuildings, and who is genuinely drawn to a slow, agrarian pace at the quiet end of the lake. It suits people who like the idea of main-channel river frontage, boating and fishing out of nearby Shady Cove Marina, and being minutes from Bledsoe Creek State Park and a layered slice of Middle Tennessee history at Cragfont, Wynnewood, and the Castalian Springs Mounds. If you want privacy, elbow room, and a from-scratch project on the water, this is a strong match.

It is probably not the right fit if you want a turnkey, move-in-ready home, an amenitized neighborhood, or a short commute. No source we reviewed shows a community pool, clubhouse, gate, or shared marina, and there appears to be little to no HOA structure, so this is individual private-shoreline land, not a managed master-planned community. There is no record of a finished home actually selling inside Starfall Landing, so a buyer here is generally signing up to build. The commute is real: plan on roughly 45 minutes-plus to downtown Nashville and about the same to BNA, so this rewards people who want distance from the bustle rather than a quick hop to town. Two honesty notes matter most. First, this is the narrow upper river-arm of the impoundment, which looks and behaves more like a wide river than the open-water basin downstream near Hendersonville, so set expectations accordingly. Second, waterfront here does not automatically mean you get a private dock: Old Hickory is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir, a dock requires a Nashville District permit, and not every shoreline is dock-eligible. At least one nearby parcel was marketed as water views rather than deeded frontage, and an existing dock's permit does not transfer automatically to a new owner. If a permitted private dock is non-negotiable for you, that has to be confirmed lot-by-lot before you commit; the upper, river-influenced shoreline can be buildable yet not dock-permittable.