Where To Build A House?

What a great forum this is. Here is my first post, hi!

We are considering building a holiday house in Thailand, east of Bangkok somewhere. My partner since 10+ years is Thai national so ownership issue will be sorted out in one way or another.

Where on the north coast would you recommend that we build something?

I would like to hear what your recommendations are, what you like or not like, and why. I fail to find such topic in this forum.

Ok, we have some preferences:

- For security we prefer a gated community of some kind, for the ease of building it would feel convenient if the plot of land was ready for construction, with water and electricity and such.

- Our budget for a land plot is no more than around 1M Baht for 1/2 rai or less, so no beach-fronts or islands we have come to understand.

- We love the islands and would love to be somewhat close for day trips or overnight.

- We don't like Pattaya, too overdeveloped. Jomtien is better but close to Pattaya. We would not like to live too far away from civilization either. We have no problem driving 15+ minutes to reach the sea.

- We like the area east of Rayong as for nature and it seem cheaper there with land but also feel that this is very far away from Bangkok.

- We would prefer a place where it is possible to get some kind of ADSL connection, and if that is too much to ask for at least somewhere that potentially will have ADSL within the next few years.

Please share your opinions about places and if you have names on villages you recommend don't hesitate to trough them in!

Any website you can recommend that lists developments/villages other than the major real estate agencies?