VH community memoir

Soon after I moved to Davis in 1973, I was fortunate to land a job as an administrative assistant and bookkeeper for Mike Corbett, Master Builder, who was designing and building custom solar homes in west Davis and working with his wife, Judy Corbett, on a conceptual plan for an innovative new neighborhood that came to be Village Homes.
The Corbetts had assembled a limited partnership of investors to purchase a 70-acre parcel of farmland from Morris Carden. My job began as a 10-hour/week bookkeeping position and quickly expanded to full-time with many more duties. I had been interested in residential design and construction from an early age, and this position offered me a broad education in many areas, including drawing plans, getting bids, working with clients, obtaining construction financing, submitting for city approvals, and supervising construction. As Village Homes became a reality, Mike became concerned with marketing his lots and homes, since so many of his concepts for the community were innovative and untested. So, just as he had convinced his friends to become investors, he convinced me – and several others – that we should buy homes. Since I had no savings and a fairly low income, Mike very generously offered me the smallest, least expensive lot in the first phase of the development, let me participate in the design and construction of my home, and allowed me to be primarily responsible for the construction (under his license) and charged me nothing for profit and overhead. He also coached me on how I might come up with a down payment by borrowing from everyone I knew. It worked. I am forever grateful for this opportunity and for Mike and Judy’s support. Without it, I don’t know how I could ever have jumped onto the bottom rung of the homeownership ladder, as it rose so quickly in the ensuing years.
April 1976: I was the first person to move into the new neighborhood — actually it was a day before final subdivision approval (shhh . . . don’t tell!) before the streetlights were illuminated. It was strange, living alone in the construction zone – several other homes were being built, but there were many vacant lots. As I recall, the first ten or so residents happened to be single women (I recall Lacey, Judy, Joyce, Betty L., Betty M. Beth G. . . . ) – and some of us eventually recruited mates and friends to join us in this new community.
Mike was a very hands-on designer, builder, and landscaper. He designed and drafted plans for the houses he built. He hand-graded the greenbelts to create the topography that was the basis of the above-ground storm drainage system. He selected all of the plants for the greenbelts, and designed retaining walls and bridges. Best of all, he organized volunteer work parties that brought residents together to build many of the infrastructure components we still enjoy – the bike path bridges, garden shop, Community Center building, concrete deck around the pool, and more. He generously sold about a third of the lots to other small builders and owner-builders, which contributed to the diversity of home designs.
Village Homes soon began to attract attention – there were many tours of curious people: planners, architects, developers, professors on field trips with students, and international visitors. My home was small and located quite close to the central bike path. There was not yet any vegetation for screening. I felt I was living in a fish bowl; people would walk right up to the windows and patio doors to peer inside. At the same time, I was working with buyers and clients of Mike’s other homes, as well as assuming many roles with the newly formed homeowners’ association. So, I knew everyone. I helped them with their loan applications. And I assisted them with their tile, flooring, and light fixture selections. And since I lived there, I fielded many of the off-hours calls and visits when neighbors had questions or concerns. It was a little intense.
After 3 or so years of the ever-increasing workload, I was getting overwhelmed and decided to leave my job with the Corbetts in order to help a friend, Marshall Hunt, owner-build his home. This experience allowed me to learn so much more about construction: Marshall hired his friend, Neil McMahon, who was formerly a journeyman carpenter, and he patiently taught me how to build concrete forms and do rough carpentry. The three of us built the foundation, constructed the framing, and did the electrical wiring. The house was a laboratory for several innovative energy-conserving features and was a passive-solar showpiece. I worked full-time on it for 9 months, even installing the concrete tile roof and doing finish carpentry. We scoured salvage yards for old doors and windows. The house was the first to sport 14-foot-tall drainage culverts, filled with water, sealed, and placed in front of a south-facing wall of windows for thermal storage.
By now, other builders and owners were purchasing lots and building in Village Homes. We were a community of sorts, helping each other when there was a heavy wall or beam to lift; and sharing a beer after work. And of course, informally communicating the technology of solar home design for water heating, passive solar space heating and natural cooling. Very few homes had a need for air conditioning, as they were all oriented and designed to take advantage of the nighttime temperature drops provided by the delta breezes that arrived by way of the valley connecting Davis to the Bay Area.
Also, by then, there were more residents – enough so that the Village Homeowners’ Association had regular meetings and elected a board that did not need to include me! After that time, I took what turned out to be a 40-year hiatus from VHA involvement, and began to finally feel like just a neighbor.
After completing the construction of Marshall’s house, (May 1977) I had accumulated the 4 years of experience required for applying for my general contractor’s license (Before moving to Davis, I had worked for a year in a San Francisco Architectural firm). I took the test, got my license, and began working on the design and construction of several homes here in VH. In the ensuing 11 years, I built about 20 custom and a few spec homes in VH and began branching out to other parts of Davis and Yolo County. Later I joined forces with Bob Schneider and his two other partners to create Ridge Builders Group, which is an entirely different story of 13 years’ duration.
Back to my early years. . . Marshall and I became a couple, living for 7 years in his home. We married, had baby #1, and began designing the forever home on a lot I had lucked into (when the first buyer decided against buying it) on Creekhollow Lane. It took me about 3 years to get this house designed, due to working on homes for other clients. When I learned of my second pregnancy, I went full-throttle toward getting the Creekhollow house built. It’s called Speed-Nesting. November 1983: We moved in about a week before PG&E installed the gas meter, and baby #2 was born. Cold showers, anyone?
I should mention the Common Area concept. My first two homes were part of Common Area “A”. Since most of the “A” residents had moved in, and one of us happened to be Rob Thayer, a noted and talented landscape architect, the developer gave our group the freedom and some funding to design and construct our common area. With Rob facilitating, we agreed, by consensus, on a landscape design that was a model for an ideal common area. There was a central lawn, with an adjacent patio and firepit, surrounded by modular raised planter boxes for vegetable gardens on the north side, and an orchard of fruit trees on the south – all shared among the eight households. We had many fun work parties, potlucks, and music around the firepit. To this day, the collaborative model works. At the other extreme, and by contrast, there are a few common areas that were divided by extending residents’ side property lines out to the bike path. Those common areas feel disjointed and are not conducive to neighbors’ gathering. The landscaping is generally not welcoming, and the houses are increasingly hard to see through the privatizing vegetation. Many common areas fall between these two extremes. The result of a purposefully conceived common area is a vibrant level of community made possible by design.
The magic of this story is one of community: At the same time, we were expanding our family, about a dozen other Village Homes couples were doing the same. The result was a very tight-knit group of kids who knew each other and everyone’s parents. They went to the same schools, played sports, built forts and fairy houses, hung out at the pool. These VH babies are now in their early 40s, many staying in touch, and some moving back to VH to create their own homes and raise their children. Magic.
It is the magic that can happen when a neighborhood is designed with physical attributes that encourage and enable residents to see, know, and interact with each other. The smaller lots, narrow streets, homes open to the common area side, shared facilities such as playfields and community center/pool, and the existence of a homeowners’ association all come together to create a neighborhood that feels safe, friendly, and supportive. I am forever grateful to have landed in this amazing place.
Virginia Thigpen
27 November, 2023
47.5 years later