A Cedar City community
Living in Ashdown Forest.
One of Cedar City's larger private subdivisions, set on the northeast bench along Ashdown Forest Road below Dairy Peak. It has been building custom homes in phases since 2004, with internal walking paths, the Fiddlers Canyon Trail close by, Cedar Ridge Golf Course just downhill, and Cedar Valley opening west below the bench.
I am Scott Buehler, a Southern Utah resident of 20-plus years and a licensed REALTOR and lender. This is the honest version of what this bench offers, what it costs, and what I would check before you buy or sell up here, including the part about the soil and the wash.
New to the area? Start with the Cedar City guide, then come back for the bench.
Ashdown Forest Rd, northeast Cedar City bench
Ashdown Forest.
Current listings
Homes for sale in Ashdown Forest.
Fed straight from the MLS and limited to homes inside the community: new Ashdown Forest listings appear here the day they list, and sold homes drop off. Because these are custom homes, read each one on its own terms rather than off a single neighborhood average.
No homes available? Be sure to check out all Cedar City listings.
Want the map view? Open the full Ashdown Forest search. Selling instead? Start with what your home is worth.
Listing information comes from the local MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
On this page
Life on the bench
A quiet corner with town still close by.
Ashdown Forest sits up on Cedar City's northeast bench, on Ashdown Forest Road as it climbs the slope below Dairy Peak. It is one of the city's larger private subdivisions, and it reads differently from the flat west-side neighborhoods: you are tucked against the red foothills with Cedar Valley opening west below you, and the position shelters the streets from the strong south winds the valley floor is known for.
The daily rhythm here is about the walk from the door. The internal walking paths make an easy loop, the Fiddlers Canyon Trail is close by on the same bench, and Cedar Ridge Golf Course sits just downhill. When you do need town, Cedar City Hospital is about four minutes down the hill, and downtown, SUU, and I-15 all stay in the same short orbit.
I tour it as a custom-home pocket, because that is what it is. No two houses read exactly alike, the community has been building in phases since 2004, and the lot does as much work as the floor plan up here. Getting that comparison right, house by house, is the single most useful thing you can do before you fall for any one listing on the bench.
Bench highlights
The northeast side has its own logic.
Six things make this end of town its own place, and each one is specific: the golf course just downhill, a trailhead on the bench, walking paths woven through the plat, the hospital minutes away, north-end freeway access, and a custom-home inventory that rewards comparing house by house.
Cedar Ridge Golf Course downhill
The city's municipal 18-hole course, at 200 E 900 N against the red hills, sits just below the bench. Tee times, the range, and the open green space are effectively part of this side of town.
Fiddlers Canyon Trail nearby
The Fiddlers Canyon Trail sits close by on the same northeast bench, with an easy lower path and a steeper ridge climb. Most subdivisions cannot say a named city trail is a short hop away.
Walking paths through the plat
Internal walking paths tie the subdivision together instead of leaving it as isolated custom lots. They are the everyday amenity here: a simple loop you use every week, no drive required.
Cedar City Hospital, ~4 min
Intermountain's hospital at 1303 North Main is roughly four minutes down the hill. Not many Cedar City neighborhoods sit this close to a full emergency room.
North-end freeway access, ~5 min
Interstate 15 at Exit 62, the 1600 North interchange, is about five minutes out. St. George is an hour south and the Kolob Canyons entrance of Zion roughly twenty-five.
Custom homes, no single model
Across 140-plus lots built in phases since 2004, the street reads varied: different elevations and floor plans, homes that answer their lot. I compare property by property, not off one average.
Homes & lots
Custom homes on the bench.
Ashdown Forest is a 140-plus-lot custom-home community that has been building in phases since 2004, and it is still filling in. Because it is not a one-builder production tract, the numbers spread out: recent activity centers on larger homes, with a median size around 3,322 square feet on lots close to a third of an acre, but you will find smaller single-level homes and big multi-level customs in the same subdivision.
That variety is the point, and it is also why you have to compare carefully. A newer home with a view, a walkout lower level, or a bigger lot should not be priced against the simplest resale up here. Over the past year, recorded sales in the area have run from bare land in the low six figures up into the mid $600,000s for finished homes, on a thin sample. So I read the pool the way an appraiser does: a few genuinely comparable sales carry more weight than any neighborhood average or portal estimate.
The bench grade is the quiet detail behind all of it. Because the ground falls away toward the valley, lots here lend themselves to daylight and walkout basements, and orientation matters more than on flat ground.
In a custom pocket, the lot still matters: view, grade, exposure, and driveway direction all change the way a home lives.
One lot-picking tip from twenty-plus years of Iron County winters: watch sun exposure and driveway direction. South-facing concrete clears faster between storms, while shaded pockets can hold ice longer, and on a bench lot that is worth knowing before you fall in love with a floor plan.
Trails & outdoors
The bench opens straight outdoors.
The outdoor story here starts at the door and steps outward. The internal walking paths are the daily loop, the Fiddlers Canyon Trail sits nearby on the same bench, and a few minutes down the hill the rest of Cedar City's outdoor menu opens up. Here is the honest tiering, from walk-from-home to day trip.
Internal walking paths (easy)
The paths woven through the subdivision are the everyday loop: a walk, a run, or a stroller lap you take after dinner without driving anywhere. The exact connection depends on your street.
Fiddlers Canyon Trail (nearby)
Close by on the same northeast bench, the city-maintained trail has an easy partly paved lower stretch and a steeper ridge climb from the same start. Confirm the best access from the specific home.
Coal Creek Trail and the Iron Hills
A few minutes down the hill, the paved Coal Creek Trail follows the creek across Cedar City, and the Iron Hills system, including the climb to the white "C", adds dirt singletrack on the south bench.
Cedar Canyon and SR-14 (day trip)
To the east, State Route 14 climbs Cedar Canyon toward cooler high country. The Lower Ashdown Gorge trailhead is up the canyon, with Cedar Breaks and the Bristlecone Pine Trail a seasonal drive beyond.
Note that the "Ashdown" name also belongs to the Ashdown Gorge Wilderness up Cedar Canyon, several miles east and unrelated to this subdivision. Out on the desert floor about twenty minutes northwest, the BLM's Three Peaks Recreation Area adds mountain-bike singletrack, OHV trails, and bouldering.
Trail details come from Cedar City's trail pages and the BLM. The wider outdoor picture, Cedar Breaks and Brian Head included, is in the Cedar City guide.
Errands & drive times
Errands, measured in minutes.
This is the practical answer to "how far is everything from up here." The short version: the bench feeds straight down to North Main, so groceries, the hospital, and the freeway are all single-digit minutes, with the golf course essentially next door. Times are measured from near Ashdown Forest Road on the bench; from the upper streets, add a couple of minutes, and confirm door-to-door.
| The errand | Where it happens | From the bench |
|---|---|---|
| Golf or the range | Cedar Ridge Golf Course, 200 E 900 N | ~3 min |
| Healthcare | Cedar City Hospital, 1303 N Main Street | ~4 min |
| Freeway on-ramp | Interstate 15 at Exit 62, 1600 North | ~5 min |
| Full grocery run | Lin's Fresh Market, 150 N Main Street | ~6 min |
| Dinner downtown | Historic Main Street | ~7 min |
| Campus and games | Southern Utah University | ~9 min |
| Second grocery option | Smith's Food & Drug, 633 S Main Street | ~10 min |
| Hardware and home improvement | The Home Depot, Providence Center | ~11 min |
| Flights | Cedar City Regional Airport (CDC) | ~12 min |
Farther out, the weekend map opens up fast: Brian Head's ski runs are about 40 minutes north via Parowan, Cedar Breaks National Monument is roughly 35 minutes up State Route 14 in season, the Kolob Canyons gate of Zion is about 25 minutes south on I-15, and St. George is an hour. The full day-trip map lives in the Cedar City guide.
Schools & education
Schools, by the facts.
Ashdown Forest is part of the Iron County School District. Listings on the bench generally name Fiddlers Canyon Elementary (grades K-5), then Canyon View Middle School and Canyon View High School, both on the north end of town. Cedar City splits between the Canyon View and Cedar High attendance zones, and this bench falls on the Canyon View side.
Boundaries are actively changing right now: Iron County is redrawing elementary zones for the 2026-27 school year and middle and high zones for 2027-28. So take the names above as the current pattern, not a guarantee, and confirm the exact assignment for any specific home directly with the district by address. For independent school information, GreatSchools and Niche both publish data you can weigh for yourself. Southern Utah University is about nine minutes away across town.
I cover the bigger education picture, including SUU, in the Cedar City guide.
The bench, the soil & the wash
What the ground does up here.
This is the part of the bench worth understanding before you buy, and it is the reason this section exists. An ephemeral wash from Fiddlers Canyon crosses this side of town, dry most of the year and carrying water only after storms. Cedar City clears the Fiddlers Canyon debris basin on the east bench, one of several east-side basins it cleans out before monsoon season, specifically to catch what the canyon sends down. This side of town has seen it, in the 1989 flood that filled basements and again in July 2021, when a fast storm pushed debris onto Fiddlers Canyon Road and the mayor declared a state of emergency.
The second thing is underfoot. Cedar Valley has documented soil and land-subsidence hazards tied to decades of groundwater decline, mapped by the Utah Geological Survey, and local builders on this bench talk about soil compaction and drainage for a reason. The severity varies a lot by parcel, and it is not a headline for every home, but it is exactly the kind of thing a good soils report and a careful inspection are for.
I am not telling you this to scare you off. Most homes up here go years without a problem, the bench sits sheltered from the valley's strong south winds, and the views and the quiet are real. The point is simply that the ground is a feature and a responsibility at the same time, and the buyers who do well up here ask about it on purpose. I treat drainage and soil as real line items on this bench, not afterthoughts.
What I check before I call a home up here a safe bet
- How the specific lot is graded, and where water actually goes when it comes off the slope or the wash.
- Any soils report on file, plus signs of settling or past water in the basement and window wells, since basements are common on this grade.
- The parcel against Cedar City's drainage and basin maps and the Utah Geological Survey hazard layers for Cedar Valley.
- The address on FEMA's Map Service Center, because each parcel on the bench deserves its own look.
This is general guidance, not a flood determination, a geologic report, or insurance advice. Confirm any specific property with Cedar City, a qualified inspector or engineer, and your insurer before you rely on it. Sources: Cedar City drainage and monsoon-prep coverage, reporting on the 1989 and 2021 storms, and the Utah Geological Survey.
What locals know
The details I would slow down and check.
Ashdown Forest rewards a buyer who reads the small print: the lot, the grade, the ground, and the route to the trail. These are the four things I would walk a friend through before they get attached to any one address up here.
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Custom comps, not price per foot. This is not a simple dollar-per-square-foot subdivision. Lot, finish, age, view, and basement quality can swing the right comp set fast, so I pull the few genuine matches rather than an average.
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Ask about soil and drainage on purpose. The ephemeral wash and Cedar Valley's soil history are real. A soils report and a look at the grading are cheap insurance on this bench, and worth doing before you fall for a floor plan.
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Winter exposure is worth checking. On any bench lot, driveway direction, shade, and slope matter. Walk the property in real conditions if snow or ice is part of your concern.
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Confirm the trail and path route from the door. The walking paths and the Fiddlers Canyon Trail are a genuine draw, but the easy way to each depends on the exact property. I check it before I sell it as a feature.
Buy or sell here
The buyer side and the seller side.
Buying in Ashdown Forest
Ashdown Forest sits on Cedar City's northeast bench, on Ashdown Forest Road below Dairy Peak and just uphill of Cedar Ridge Golf Course. It is one of the city's larger private subdivisions, tucked in the Fiddlers Canyon area with the red foothills above and Cedar Valley opening west below the bench.
Mostly custom single-family homes across a 140-plus-lot community that has been building in phases since 2004. Recent activity centers on larger homes, with a median size around 3,322 square feet on lots near a third of an acre. Size, finish, age, and view vary house to house, so I compare property by property rather than leaning on one neighborhood average.
Ashdown Forest is in the Iron County School District, and listings in the area generally name Fiddlers Canyon Elementary for grades K-5, Canyon View Middle School, and Canyon View High School, all on the north end of town. Iron County is redrawing elementary boundaries for the 2026-27 year and middle and high boundaries for 2027-28, so confirm the current assignment for any specific home directly with the district by address.
Yes. The community has internal walking paths for the daily loop, and the Fiddlers Canyon Trail sits nearby on the same northeast bench. A few minutes down the hill, the paved Coal Creek Trail runs across town, and State Route 14 climbs Cedar Canyon into the high country to the east. The easy route to the trailhead depends on the exact street, so I confirm it from the specific home.
Because these are custom homes, the range is wide and depends on the home, lot, age, finish level, and what else is competing at the time. Over the past year, recorded sales in the area have run from bare land in the low six figures up into the mid $600,000s for finished homes, on a thin sample. Treat that as a starting frame and confirm against the live listings and recent MLS sales.
Yes, and it is a fair thing to ask on this bench. An ephemeral wash from Fiddlers Canyon crosses this side of town, and Cedar City clears the Fiddlers Canyon debris basin on the east bench before monsoon season for a reason. Cedar Valley also has documented soil and subsidence hazards that vary by parcel. I check the grading, the drainage path, and the parcel against the city and Utah Geological Survey maps before I call any specific home a safe bet.
Ready to look? See what is on the market or tell me what you are after.
Selling in Ashdown Forest
In a custom-home pocket, the right comps matter more than any neighborhood average. A newer home with a view, a larger lot, or a finished lower level should not be priced against the simplest resale in the area. Get the comp set honest first and the rest of the pricing follows.
I start with live MLS comps inside the northeast-bench custom-home set, then adjust for lot, view, grade, age, finish level, basement quality, and garage setup. Because inventory here can run thin, I weigh the few genuinely comparable sales more than any portal estimate.
List it with me and your home is featured across MovingUtah, on this page, on the Cedar City hub, and in the featured listings buyers browse on this site. The get featured page walks through exactly how that works.
Yes, but on a purchase I take one role only, never both. I can work as your real estate agent or as your lender, and the role is disclosed before we move forward.
Thinking about it? Start with your number or see how featuring works.
Keep exploring Cedar City
Want a closer look at Ashdown Forest?
Buying, I can pull the current Ashdown Forest listings and compare them, home by home, against the rest of the northeast bench, soil and drainage included. Selling, I will position your custom home against the right slice of the bench instead of a flat average. Either way, we start with a conversation.
Selling in Ashdown Forest
Want to sell your home in Ashdown Forest? List it with Scott Buehler and get featured on MovingUtah.
No best-agent claims and no guaranteed-price promises, just honest custom-home pricing that finds the right comps before it ever names a number.