Waterstone Farms, Lake Oconee | Madison GA Neighborhood Guide
Waterstone Farms sits on the Apalachee arm in Morgan County, on the northwest side of Lake Oconee. Twenty-three lots across seventy-eight mostly wooded acres, one road in and out, and a racehorse on the entrance sign.
The horse is not decoration. Waterstone Farms was laid out with bridle and walking trails through its common ground, which is uncommon on this lake. Eight of the twenty-three lots are lakefront. The other fifteen are estate lots running from about an acre and a half up to six acres.
Quick Facts
| County / city | Morgan County — Madison, GA 30650 |
| Streets | Waterstone Drive, the only street, off Apalachee River Road |
| Getting there | I-20 at Exit 121, north through Buckhead to Apalachee River Road. From the north, Highway 278 onto Apalachee River Road |
| Time to grocery | 10 to 15 minutes to Madison |
| Size | 23 lots on about 78 acres — 8 lakefront, 15 off-water estate lots |
| Gated | No |
| HOA | Yes — Waterstone Farms Homeowners Association, Inc. Dues reported in the $600s a year |
| Lot sizes | Estate lots roughly 1.5 to 6 acres; waterfront lots smaller |
| Lake access | Deeded for every lot, not only the waterfront eight |
| Amenities | Community boat ramp, day-use docks, two association-owned lake access tracts, a community pond, and bridle and walking trails |
| Schools | Morgan County School System |
Where Waterstone Farms Is on Lake Oconee
This is the Apalachee branch, the western of the two rivers that make Lake Oconee, at the point where it is still narrow and river-like. Waterstone Farms is on the Morgan County bank. Beau Rivage is a short way upstream on the Greene County side, which is a useful comparison if you are shopping this end of the lake: same water, different county, different schools, different feel.
It is part of the broader Buckhead and the Morgan County River Pockets area. At twenty-three lots, Waterstone Farms Lake Oconee is one of the smallest neighborhoods in that group.
There are two ways in and both land on Apalachee River Road. From the interstate you come off I-20 at Exit 121 and run north through Buckhead. From the north you come down Highway 278. That second route is the one that makes Madison a ten to fifteen minute errand, which is the practical advantage of this corner of the lake over the Greene County side.
The Lots and the Homes
Waterstone Farms was platted and developed in the early 2010s, but most of the houses did not go up until 2017 to 2019. That gap is worth understanding before you look: this is a neighborhood that was drawn during one market and built during a much better one, so the homes here are newer than the subdivision is.
The eight lakefront lots were all eligible for private max docks, and the water in front of them is reported at four and a half feet or better — deep enough to matter at this end of the lake, where shallow is the norm. The fifteen estate lots behind them are the larger properties, some of them six acres, and they are the reason the neighborhood covers seventy-eight acres with only twenty-three addresses on it.
Lake Access for Every Lot, Not Just the Waterfront Eight
Lake access here is deeded to all twenty-three lots. The association owns two tracts of lake frontage, one on either side of the waterfront homes, and those tracts carry a community boat ramp and day-use docks. There is a community pond as well.
The tract on the southeast side backs up to the northernmost lots on Heidi Trail, which is Oconee Shores — a much larger and older neighborhood on the same arm.
What this means in practice is that an off-water estate lot in Waterstone Farms is a different property from an off-water lot almost anywhere else on the lake. You are not buying a house near the water and hoping for a ramp. You are buying a deeded right to a ramp and a dock your association owns, with acreage behind it.
Horses and the Trail System
The bridle and walking trails are part of the common ground, and the estate lots are large enough to make keeping a horse realistic rather than theoretical. Very few Lake Oconee neighborhoods are set up this way. Most of the acreage on this lake is either a golf community or a subdivision on quarter-acre lots, and the places with real land tend to have no water at all.
If you want a horse and a boat ramp on the same deed, the list of places on Lake Oconee that can do it is short, and Waterstone Farms is on it.
What Has Sold Here
Waterstone Farms does not price as one neighborhood, and a single range across it would mislead you. Three different things trade here and they sit at three different levels.
The smaller interior lots have recently sold in the $100,000s. Interior homes start around $500,000 and climb from there. The waterfront commands the highest prices in the neighborhood by a wide margin, and those eight lots come up rarely enough that any figure attached to them goes stale fast.
The clearest recent example on the waterfront side is a craftsman built in 2014, close to four thousand square feet on over an acre and a half, with a walk-out basement, a max dock and a wood seawall. It sold in the summer of 2022 for just over $900,000, above its asking price, after about two months on the market.
Lot size is what makes a neighborhood-wide number meaningless here. The estate lots run from about an acre and a half to six acres, so two off-water properties in the same subdivision can be very different pieces of land before you account for whatever is standing on them.
Frequently Asked Questions About Waterstone Farms
Where is Waterstone Farms on Lake Oconee?
Waterstone Farms is on the Apalachee arm at the northwest end of Lake Oconee, in Morgan County, Georgia, with a Madison 30650 mailing address. You reach it from Apalachee River Road, either from I-20 at Exit 121 north through Buckhead or from Highway 278 coming down from the north.
How many lots are in Waterstone Farms?
Twenty-three, on about seventy-eight mostly wooded acres. Eight are lakefront and fifteen are off-water estate lots ranging from roughly an acre and a half to six acres. Waterstone Drive is the only street.
Is Waterstone Farms gated?
No. The entrance is stacked stone columns with a timber beam and a hanging sign, but there is no gate on the neighborhood. Individual properties inside it may have their own gates.
Does Waterstone Farms have an HOA?
Yes. Waterstone Farms Homeowners Association, Inc. owns the two lake access tracts and the common ground the trails run through. Dues were reported in the $600s a year on the last sale to reach the record. For scale, Oconee Shores further down the same arm runs $75 a year and Sugar Bend $50 to $100, and both of those are voluntary associations that mostly buy you a key to a boat ramp. Waterstone is many times either, and the reason is what its association actually owns and has to keep up: two tracts of lake frontage, a boat ramp, day-use docks and the common ground the bridle trails run through. Margie can confirm the current figure and what it covers before you write an offer.
Do the off-water lots in Waterstone Farms have lake access?
Yes, and it is deeded rather than informal. All twenty-three lots carry lake access through the two association-owned tracts, which hold a community boat ramp and day-use docks. That is unusual and it is the main reason to look here if you want land rather than frontage.
Can you keep horses in Waterstone Farms?
The neighborhood was laid out as a horse-friendly community with bridle trails through the common ground, and the estate lots are large enough to support it. Confirm what is permitted on the specific lot you are considering before you buy, since that is a lot-by-lot question rather than a neighborhood-wide one.
Does being off-water hurt my value in Waterstone Farms?
Less than it would almost anywhere else on this lake, and that is the whole point of the place. An off-water lot in a normal subdivision is worth a fraction of the waterfront one next to it, because the waterfront lot has a dock and the off-water lot has a view at best. Here the off-water lot has a deeded ramp, day-use docks and several acres.
It still will not price like frontage — nothing does — but the gap is narrower, and the buyer for it is a different person entirely, usually someone who wants land and a boat rather than a lawn running down to a seawall. Valuing one of these against an ordinary off-water lot elsewhere on the lake will give you the wrong number. Contact Margie for a valuation of your Lake Oconee home.
Why is my Zillow estimate wrong for my Waterstone Farms home?
Because almost everything that sets value here is invisible to it. An automated estimate works from square footage, bed and bath counts and whatever nearby sales it can find, and in a neighborhood of twenty-three lots there are very few nearby sales to find. It does not know that your lot is six acres rather than one, that your deed carries lake access through an association tract, that there is a boat ramp and a dock you can use, or that there are bridle trails behind the house.
It will reach for comparables in subdivisions that have none of those things. The number it produces is not so much wrong as answering a different question. Contact Margie Sorrell for an estimate of your Lake Oconee home’s value.
Interested in Waterstone Farms?
Waterstone Farms rarely has much on the market, and the two halves of it — eight lakefront lots and fifteen estate lots — sell to two different buyers for two different reasons. Get in touch and Margie will tell you honestly what is available, what it is actually worth, and whether the trail-and-ramp combination is the thing you are really after or just the thing that caught your eye.
Last updated September 2026.