Saddle Creek Golf Course near Copperopolis, ringed with homes, is part of the development boom that is quickly transforming Calaveras County. Sacramento Bee/Paul Kitagaki Jr.

The Old Corner Saloon on Main Street in Copperopolis dates to the 1800s - unlike the faux "old" buildings planned for a massive project.

A Los Angeles developer, whose vast holdings include a Hawaiian island and a posh Copperopolis golf resort, is creating the Copperopolis Town Square project as a self-contained village that has "evolved" from the 1880s - complete with crooked walls, cracked plaster exteriors and a medley of architectural styles.

The project is an homage to the past, but it's the region's future that is so enticing to developers and homebuyers: When finished in about three years, Town Square will be a commercial seed for 3,000 homes developer Castle & Cooke wants to build nearby with prices running from $700,000 to $1.2 million or more.

That will mean years of construction as workers widen and straighten the two-lane highways that now lace the county, expand water, sewer and electrical lines for more homes and businesses, and build entire new neighborhoods in the rolling landscape.

"The foothills are booming again," said Dave Haley, the Castle & Cooke Northern California vice president who runs the nearby Saddle Creek golf resort and is overseeing Town Square.

Developers and home shoppers have discovered Calaveras County and Copperopolis in particular. Builders like the region for its generally pro-growth policies, available land and potential for development. Homebuyers - many looking for a second-home getaway - love the area's rural beauty, slower pace and proximity to Yosemite and Valley cities. But the proposals worry some residents and environmentalists, who warn that a surging population could overwhelm the landscape.

The numbers hint at what's coming. Sales of newly built homes in Calaveras County increased from 172 three years ago to 404 in 2005, according to DataQuick Information Systems, which tracks county property records. The median sale price during that time rose 31 percent to $359,000.

Copperopolis accounted for more than a quarter of the new homes sold in the county last year - 114 units with a median price of $455,000. That's up from 25 new Copperopolis homes sold in 2003 when the median price was $319,000, DataQuick reported.

Who are the buyers? Absentee owners. The tax bill for four of every five new homes sold in Copperopolis last year went to a different ZIP code, according to DataQuick. That's up from 64 percent three years ago.

Until now, commerce has been slow to follow the rooftops shooting up in the hill-framed Copperopolis basin that lies about 40 miles east of Stockton.

Up till now, it's mostly been the kind of place you drive past to get where you're going. About 5 million vehicles motor by on Highway 4 each year, but Copperopolis is a quarter-mile from that meandering road, making it practically invisible.

Travelers who wander back find about a dozen businesses on Main Street, including the Old Corner Saloon, founded in 1862, and McCarty's, a delicatessen and convenience store run by one of the town's founding families until they sold it a few years ago.

"We have to go to Sonora or Angels Camp for just about everything," said Erica Van Aman, who tends bar at the saloon and is excited about Town Square. "And I don't know anybody who lives and works in town."

It wasn't always that way.

Gold miners founded Copperopolis in 1860 after discovering rich copper veins running through the area. The town quickly became a booming commercial center with at least 4,000 residents producing copper for Union Army bullets and artillery shells during the Civil War.

Copper prices plummeted when the war ended. The mines went idle. By 1870, only 170 people called Copperopolis home. Fire twice ravaged the town. The mines revived when copper demand grew during the two World Wars, but closed for good in 1946.

Things stayed pretty much the same until Castle & Cooke bought Saddle Creek Resort in 1999. The privately held company, with a portfolio that boasts 98 percent of Lanai in the Hawaiian Islands and commercial properties from Baltimore to Bakersfield, quickly made improvements to the resort, sold off lots for custom homes and began building some of its own.

Since then, several small subdivisions have sprung up. Wood frames for new houses dot the rolling hills while cattle graze in nearby fields. On nearby Lake Tulloch, newer homes surround much of the shoreline, and homeowners launch their boats from private backyard docks.

Historic Copperopolis, which squats on a mile-long section of the town's main road, remains essentially unchanged from decades past.

Three years ago Castle & Cooke bought the Town Square site and tapped Rudy Ortega, a Murphys architect, to design the project. He proposed creating a setting that looked as though it had evolved over the course of 120 years.

"The idea was to have a back story for each building," Ortega said. "There's almost nothing left of the original Copperopolis, so we asked, 'If a town was there, what buildings would you expect to find?' "

The answer prompted Ortega to design an "old" fire station that will house a new bank. The town's "former" mercantile building will be a grocery store. Medical offices are planned for the faux 19th-century schoolhouse.

All of the structures, about 230,000 square feet total, will look as though they'd been renovated and expanded over time. Some will feature pre-cracked plaster exteriors, crooked walls and exposed beams.

While supporters tout Town Square's design and economic pluses, detractors worry about its effect on the environment. They see it as the next step down a slippery slope to sprawl and congestion.

"I have no doubt that this will be a visually enticing place for people to shop," said John Buckley, director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center in Twain Harte. "But the bigger picture is that it's a growth inducement in an area already overrun by an explosion of development."

High school teacher Steve Eckert is troubled by what the venue might do to his daily drive to Stockton.

"Highway 4 is a dangerous two-lane road with no passing lanes," Eckert said. "Put a lot of drivers (on Highway 4) who don't know the road and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what will happen."

And while many welcome the jobs and sales tax revenue Town Square will generate, McCarty's owner Bill Turner is concerned he might lose business to new merchants in a state-of-the-art venue closer to Highway 4.

"But I've resigned myself to the development," Turner said. "You've got to look beyond yourself."

The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors approved the project earlier this year, hailing its design and economic stimulus for the region.

"I see it as a positive for the whole county as far as sales tax revenue," said Supervisor Victoria Erickson, whose district includes Copperopolis. "It's the type of project we'd like to encourage."