For the second time in almost as many months, I’ve found a quirk in subdivision design, nestled deep within a metro that, for the last few decades, has been cranking out subdivisions the way Henry Ford was rolling out the Model T a century ago. But Las Vegas, which has doubled its population multiple times since it started to achieve national prominence in the 1950s, has been taming the desert at a greater pace and breadth than almost any other major city in the country. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that this region boasts more experimentation in subdivision design than a more established metro like (as an example) Boston. Whether private drive or public, the approaches to residential and subdivision design keep growing, and any place with a high volume of new developments from the 21st century is going to manifest this diversity in approach far more than a place that has expanded comparatively little, or not at all.
Not all of these innovations in design are opulent or high-profile. Sometimes—perhaps a majority of the time—a developer merely finds a clever way maximize the return on investment by finding a way to conserve space without compromising market demand for the housing, the shopping, the office park, and so forth. Back in June I explored the “sideways subdivision”: homes in metro Vegas that needed to fit into unusually narrow parcels, so the builder pivoted them 90 degrees. From the street, a visitor looks at the side of the house; the front garage and entryway are barely visible.
Elsewhere in the same unincorporated Clark County expanse, southwest of downtown Vegas and The Strip, another oddity sits a few miles away:
It says “Private Drive”, but the devil is in the details: is it a private drive or the Private Drive? It receives the same sort of municipal signage as any other street in the area, including that of the more proiminent street upon which I’m standing: South Ullom Drive. From this angle, the sign looks official. But what is the real nature of this particular private drive?
At first blush, it looks like it could have been the sort of street stub I’ve featured before: short, goes nowhere, but the developer planted it as a potential “Phase Two” that could get tacked on to the “Phase One”, which of course included South Ullom Drive. And Phase Two never happened as planned.
But no, that isn’t likely the full story, because it would have received a name other than “private drive”. It really is restricted, as that bizarre sign positioned in the middle of the road indicates:
The entire cul-de-sac does not belong to the public right-of-way. The private residences whose properties abut the private drive must own and maintain it. Such is the nature of a private drive—a common occurrence, except for one other glaring factor:
Only one home has any access through this cul-de-sac with the official-looking street sign. It’s not an exclusive street shared by a cluster of neighbors who agreed to maintain their access road collectively. A single property rests off of this private drive. No other curb cut exists except the one on the right half of the above photo, right next to the big black mailbox (and presumably the mail delivery gets an exception to “no trespassing” rule). In all likelihood, therefore, the entire cul-de-sac (private drive) and all the cars on it belong to the homeowners who have exclusive access through the driveway. And those homeowners just have a big round piece of asphalt all to their own for their cars or any visitors. It’s a weirdly luxurious, impervious entrance.
This private drive is a glorified private driveway. But why? It’s clear that this cul-de-sac uses a higher grade of paving surface than a usual homeowner’s driveway; it has curbs and buried utilities. It looks nicer and more improved, quite frankly, than South Ullom Drive, which measurers nearly a mile in length and primarily just offers gravel along the shoulder. Why wouldn’t a homeowner just build a conventional driveway off of South Ullom, then curve it to the garage on the property? Why spend all this extra money?
My only guess is that this was at one time a stub street with more ambitious intentions: either to access up to three or four homes radiating off the cul-de-sac, or to incentivize a linkage for a later phase (or later developer) to latch on a longer street. But none of that ever happened. The only home rests along the north side of “private drive”; meanwhile, an enclosure for horses rests on the south side, opposite the house, and nothing further developed. Eventually, the homeowner purchased the right-of-way from the County, who was happy to divest itself of the maintenance costs. So now, attached to the title of this home at the intersection of South Ullom and “Private”, is “Private Drive” itself.
I’ll concede this is hardly some breakthrough in suburban land development. But it reveals a sort of cadastral laxity that probably accentuates what has made Las Vegas appealing to so many first-time homebuyers over the last half-century of population surge. Sure, one can easily encounter a private drive in the Midwest or Northeast. But how easy is it to find one that still earns County (or City) signage, pavement to municipal road standards, curbs, and yet belongs to a private citizen—not just because the homeowner wanted to buy but because the municipality was willing to sell? Though I didn’t see this exact arrangement anywhere else as I was running along the side streets on a typically bright Vegas morning, I saw other incarnations of public/private ambiguity that similarly evoked a wild-west spirit for the 21st century. A private cul-de-sac? Why not? Just put a sign out front so everyone knows.
If any part of America is going to display a devil-may-care attitude like this, why not the city that reinvents itself every twenty-five years? Quite literally, in fact. Fremont Street was the original commercial corridor when Las Vegas was little more than a necessary stop along the Union Pacific Railroad’s trunk line. It only incorporated in 1911, later than any other major American city. By the 1950s, when Vegas first start capturing Middle America’s attention as a locus for naughty fun, the energy had shifted to the intersecting, longitudinal Las Vegas Boulevard that spawned mega-casinos on huge parcels along a continuous “strip”. Fremont Street languished. But what about today?
Since the turn of the century, the two nodes have compete for gawkers; even more so in 2026. Fremont Street offers an “Experience” all its own, and, unlike The Strip, it’s fully within Las Vegas municipal boundaries. If the powers-that-be in Sin City can cap a street and run 24/7 seizure-inducing LED displays along the faux-rooftop, why not let a humble landowner buy his own private Idaho?
8 thoughts on “Private drive with blacktop, curbs, sewers, but no real name. Yep, must be Vegas.”
Dumpster is kinda weird with mixed use commercial and residential. Idk but I am thinking of flash floods with the landscape. 🛻🤔 🌵 😆
The landscape may get flash floods once in a blue moon. But probably not often enough that they’d modify the building codes.
You’re very right about the dumpster. Would it have something to do with the horse stables that are right behind it? Hope not.
Based on the Clark County GIS website, it appears to be a standard private street, as the property lines (there are 4 lots) go up to the street centerline. And there are other cul-de-sacs in the area that are unnamed that serve 4 or so lots.
That private drive, which would be part of a private servitude of access, would typically have a name in most jurisdictions, for E911 purposes if anything. It’s not ideal for a building to have an address on one street but access provided by another street. Maybe Clark County doesn’t require private streets to have names, but that would be unusual, especially for a large urban county.
Some jurisdictions do require their private drives to be constructed to a high standard. Most if not all urban counties have some minimum standards. I’m not sure how Clark County works in this regard though.
As a land nerd, I suspected this but was too lazy to look up Clark County GIS. 🙂 I did look at Google Maps and noted a couple other 4-lot cul-de-sacs in the same stretch of S. Ullom and assumed this explanation was one possibility.
Agreed, and that’s what caught my attention with this cul-de-sac in particular compared to others along Ullom Drive: the fact that it didn’t have a name. It’s possible, that the four lots are under different ownership, but not likely: after all, why restrict all outsiders onto the cul-de-sac? Three out of the four lots seem to function as a horse stable, which almost certainly means there are at most two owners, or (most likely) the stable belongs to the homeowners on the right side of most of these photos.
I suspect, as does another commenter here, that the original developer intended it as a stub street and public ROW to lead to a different development that would extend the stub into the new terrain to the west. But subsequent developers decided not to use it, closing the road off, and lowering the value of the adjacent lands enough that the homeowner petitioned for vacation of the ROW, then bought the lots. They are merged in every sense but the legal one.
This private drive is indeed constructed to a much higher standard than Ullom Drive, except for the standard of giving it a unique name. Makes me wonder if it’s the only ROW in Clark County with the name “Private”, but, since it is genuinely private and no longer a road of record, it doesn’t have to be the only one–unless the County restricts homeowners from naming their own private servitudes something that isn’t unique…and it probably doesn’t.
Yes, and it’s probably more procedural than anything–i.e., the lots, under a single ownership, have been developed as though merged. The landowner simply didn’t both to codify it.
There’s an Airstream camping trailer over by the palm tree. There is an opening in the fence behind the white pickup facing the camera. The driveway through that opening appears to be narrow, not a major commercial entry. The truck is pulling a narrow trailer such as a horse trailer, not a camper. There is no driver occupying the truck’s driver’s seat. Space near the dumpster may have a steel fence such as a corral The dumpster may be placed there for a temporary use such as a carnival. The dumpster itself is oddly positioned unless it’s for disposal or recycling by the neighborhood. The street curb in the foreground has an unfinished transition to an asphalt driveway that seems to serve something behind the camera, out of view. The driveway near the right side of the photo seems to have a large mailbox, and a dark brown structure in the trees to the right. The white pole in the trees suggests an institutional use. The tire marks on the driveway leading to the brown structure are probably evidence of more traffic than would be expected from a single-family home. From the camera position the paved area seems to be a cul-de-sac, but it could be a street intersection. The cloud formation could be influenced by the hills in the distance, possibly about five miles from the camera. The land near the dumpster may be development sites of residential lots. In the view above the white building is a faint network that may be antennas of some kind or large electric transmission towers located at least a half mile away. The black rectangles on the street asphalt are probably shadows of utility devices suspended on overhead electric lines or communication cables. The black rectangle on the right is adjecent to some irregularity in the asphalt surface, such as gravel. There is no evidence of traffic wear on the street’s asphalt. Thus far, this summary lists diverse observations in the view, but no conclusory interpretations. Importantly, the land to the right is probably professionally landscaped, the trees are not freshly planted, but the street is newly installed. The street curb on the far side of the street has an integrated sidewalk for at least a part of the street length in this view, but the near side of the street has no sidewalk. The land to the left of the view is prepared for development of some kind. The street seems very wide, but that may be due to camera angle.
Good eyes and a thorough scope. Peruse the full article for a few additional photos (and links!), and see if you agree with my summation: all the land in these photos (except perhaps at the horizon), belongs to a single owner who keeps horses. And that includes the nicely paved cul-de-sac.