VH community memoir

We were living happily on L street in Davis with a huge yard backing up to Holmes Junior High when our then 3-year-old son Nick started Davis Parent Nursery School!    On Day 1 he came back with a best friend…Christopher Corbett.   Soon the boys were playing together even after “school”. That meant I had to drive ‘all the way out’ to the newly developing Village Homes to pick Nick up from the Corbett’s house which was just built and had no landscaping yet.  One day when I arrived I saw the true appeal of being at Christopher’s house…the swale by their house was a PERFECT MUD BATH.  There were the two boys joyfully smeared all over with mud making the drive back to L Street a challenge!

So the play times for Christopher and Nick kept me driving over to VH throughout a rainy winter but then spring came!   I entered a paradise of daffodils and blossoming young fruit trees newly covering the muddy mess of fall and winter!   I remember coming home proclaiming to Jon that we just had to look at living in that potential paradise!!!

Time moved forward and Mike tried to convince us to move into a sun catcher ‘spec” house on Shire just across from their home.  But we were already dreaming of designing a home of our own….and welcomed Mike’s eventual suggestion of a lot further north which would eventually be along the bike path and park-like green.  

As we began construction of our home in 1978, there were agricultural fields immediately to our north and west and we looked to the east to see the slab for what was to become Emerson Junior High.  No other houses were nearby… or even started.. and Arlington stopped at Westernesse! 

 Planning our own home, we knew we did not want the then popular water columns BUT DID want a greenhouse,   However, when Mike thought Lord and Burnham type greenhouse we balked (Jon already spent his day job in greenhouses ! )   so we designed something of our own!   Our slab was poured over about 3 feet of ‘RIVER ROCK” to increase the mass (instead of water in columns etc) and designed a sunroom entry with a big noisy exhaust fan that could switch between drawing warmed air (in winter) from inside the room to intaking cooled summer morning air.  That fan forced the cooled or heated air through ducts that emptied into those rocks and warmed or cooled off the floor.  It was so innovative that some folks from Sac State asked to monitor our system by placing thermometers in several places in our slab.  We still use that system….AND that ghastly noisy fan!!! 

As our house was being built, our young Kristin and Nick learned about life in a passive solar home….probably realizing that “passive” was really “active”.  One day after we had moved in,  a CBS crew spent a whole day in our house interviewing and photographing for a TV special.   They interviewed our two kids  (4 1/2 yo Nick and 7 yo Kristin)) who explained at length in their own words how our house “worked”.  Of course, we waited anxiously to see that special and after 8-9 hours of filming, they used less than a minute from our house.     

In the early years, living up north in the ‘boonies” on the promised park and bike path (which I think Mike designed to swing out a bit from our house to give us bonus space!!!) meant that tour groups frequently passed by our dining room window.  Since there wasn’t a lot to look at BUT our house,  I got so I was always aware of whether anyone was outside of our long low dining room window.   One day, I recall being ready to take off a sweatshirt.  A quick check revealed a clear coast so I carelessly pulled it over my head.  Of course, the tee shirt underneath pulled up over my eyes too!  When finally got rearranged and looked out the window, a group of about 20 Japanese tourists …cameras in hand…were standing right outside while Mike explained our house to them!!  

From the time we moved in in May 1979 for several years, new houses were going up all the time!   Our kids loved collecting scrap lumber to build forts in various locations.  A favorite was on the lot immediately to the north (Where Jim and Wendy built their house) and the kids were so disappointed when that ‘escape’ had to be torn down.

Another favorite activity for the kids growing up in those early years was to explore the insides of construction sites.   One day, I went looking for Nick and friends only to find them swinging from the rafters of a two-story house under construction on the other side of what has now become Parque Chico.   We had to set limits against THAT but the joy of living in Village Homes…and growing up there…was that kids were safe and could explore, graze, and grow up without the constant gaze of their parents!

When Nick was 5, Judy Corbett, others,  and we hired Barbara Neu and set up what was to be called The New Primary School using the quite new community center.  12 kids, K-3, were in the first cadre. The school remained open for three years, until the end of Nick’s 2nd grade.  Additionally,  during the last year of the school, when Kristin was feeling anxious about going into 4th grade at West Davis Intermediate, Barbara Neu invited Kristin to mentor and assist with the younger kids. In exchange, Barbara tutored Kristin through her 4th-grade curriculum.   ( Today Kristin is a clinical psychologist specializing in work with kids!)

One kids’ activity I fondly recall involved Lisa Corbett.  Being quite a bit older than our kids…and most of the VH kids, she several times gathered a crew of them together to create a dance ‘show”…it was an equal opportunity, multi-aged kid activity with dance routines, costumes, and all!!   I believe gave them insights I doubt they might have had otherwise. AND AGAIN, we parents just let our kids head over to the community center for these dance activities…they could walk or bike there from our house WITHOUT EVER CROSSING A STREET. 

When Mike and Judy created Village Homes, it was, I believe with social interactiveness in mind.   The open common areas were unique to Village Homes and created a variety of opportunities for our family.   Using common area gardens brought special links with neighbors as well as serving as sources for exercise, economy, and sustainability.   

One funny benefit of the fencelessness of the common area comes to mind as I recall a period of time in the pre-cell phone era, when Nick and Kevin Northcutt (living in the house now occupied by the Robertsons) decided they wanted to connect a “phone line” between the two houses.   Their ‘phone”, a couple of paper cups with a string strung between the two houses worked “well”…but only if they YELLED loud enough into the cups!!!!    

It wasn’t only about community for the kids!  Some time in the 80’s we began enjoying potlucks together….for us it was in the Parque Chico area!   The idea took wings when we decided to use a little yellow flag that anyone could plant on the green announcing a potluck.  Miraculously, a 6 pm potluck would spring up on that day. At first, we gathered to the south of the green only when the flag was posted, but as time progressed, the flag disappeared and the Sunday 6 pm potluck became an institution near the north end where eventually the playground, benches, and table were located!  We welcomed anyone and enjoy to this day, having folks come from all reaches of Village Homes!