Phased growth:
The streets and infrastructure for the first group of houses were started in the fall of 1975. The first cluster of 50 houses was completed within a year, with additional clusters built almost once a year for the next 5 or 6 years. The final project, originally intended to be a senior living complex, was completed in 1982.
Common Areas:
The Village is organized into groups of 8 homes facing an open common area. After surrounding homes were occupied, we installed a basic landscape and gave each cluster of 8 households a total of $600 to spend to purchase any plants or structures they could agree upon. Each group of individual households was also jointly responsible for the maintenance of their common area.
This plan was a part of our strategy for building a sense of community –to create places and reasons for people to come together. It was also a method of assuring a safer community by designing houses with windows overlooking these jointly managed outdoor spaces.
In the early years, there was little to no vegetation to create visual barriers between homes. These wide-open areas provided lots of opportunities for interaction. Kids, in particular, tended to gather together once someone within eyesight jumped in a sandbox, a plastic swimming pool, or on a swing. As they grew older, elementary school kids of a similar age group, mostly boys, would play all over Village Homes exploring their new territory in packs.
Parents knew one another and kept watch over the packs. If I needed my son Chris for dinner, I’d call someone on the North side for help in locating my missing child and sending him home. My son rarely came home for lunch in the summers but would forage on the plentiful vegetables and fruit.
Common areas became places for pranks. A group of saw horses moved from place to place, grazing in various unexpected areas. Some outrageous plastic, pink flamingos also occasionally landed here and there.
In the beginning, we were short on money for completing greenbelts, play areas, and pool facilities – thus a lot of this work was accomplished through work parties. These group efforts were very, very well attended. Because there were fewer residents then, people tended to know one another. They would notice if you were not participating and it was easy to feel guilty if you were not there to help. As a female who had never been involved in a construction project, I personally learned a lot from these opportunities. It was empowering!
We felt ownership of the things we built and planted together and were watchful and protective of our lands and amenities. It was a built-in policing system.
The community center was a kindergarten in the first few years, with the school’s equipment removed daily so it could be available for evening use.
My then-teenage daughter Lisa organized dance performances with Village Homes kids from 5 to 10 years old. Shows were held in the community center or the seating pavilion outside. It was a first step toward Lisa’seventual career as Director of Applegate Dance Company
The Restaurant:
Michael Corbett managed the first restaurant in Village Homes, serving not exactly gourmet but very inexpensive meals. Everyone could afford to eat dinner in the courtyard and sit around on summer evenings chatting after work. This was not a viable business model, but we gave it a shot and I loved it while it lasted.
The Greenbelts and Ag. Lands:
One of my fondest memories was of a work party to plant daffodil bulbs all over Apple Hill (now Peach Hill) and the surrounding greenbelts. It was glorious around Valentine’s Day when the hills would burst out in a field of yellow.
We could always tell when President’s Day was coming because the almond trees planted adjacent to Arlington Blvd would transform the strip into a cloud of thick, fluffy white blossoms. When the blossoms turned into full-grown almonds, we would hire a tree shaker to shake them out of the trees onto tarps. Then, as a group made up of both adults and kids, we’d gather them up and take them home.
Fame Comes to Village Homes:
I met Tom Hayden in 1979 through an appointment by Governor Brown to the SolarCal Council. Hayden was serving as Council Chairman and he asked for a tour of Village Homes. He was impressed enough to include it as a subject of a national speaking tour featuring himself and his wife, Jane Fonda.
Then came the reporters and the TV crews and the movie stars and the politicians. One of the first of these was US Senator Alan Cranston.
Then came First Lady Rosalyn Carter. We enjoyed a nice conversation with her at our home, followed by a bike tour of Village Homes. Rosalyn was a lovely, kind woman and we liked her a lot. However, dealing with the Secret Service was a little overwhelming. They were meticulous, to say the least!
Next came Francois Mitterrand, President of France, and his security team with a different protection strategy – thugs with big muscles pushing everyone away who got too close, including me!
The French President arrived with a team of three helicopters, one of which blew off the roof of our gazebo. We knew they were coming so our HOA organized a greeting party made up of our residents lining the edges of the big green. Our kids were handed French flags to wave as he arrived. That was such fun!!
Our sixteen-year-old Lisa was photographed with the President as he walked down our common area and the two of them stopped to smell cherry blossoms together. The next morning they appeared on the front page of the Sacramento Bee, with Lisa identified as his wife!
National press included a “Hero of the Planet” feature in Time and a cover story in Landscape Architecture.
And then there were the movie stars that we were asked to entertain at our home – Jane Fonda was there a number of times, also Margo Kidder (Superman) and Pam Dauber (Mork and Mindy).
For my daughter, it was a useful lesson. Lisa decided that she’d never again envy a movie star. She discovered that celebrities are just regular people, but their lives are more complicated than the life that she would like to live and far too public. Good choice Lisa!!
VH community memoir 