Tucked away among green pathways, fruit trees and vineyards is a planned community ahead of its time in sustainability and intentional living. More than 50 years after its design and groundbreaking, Village Homes remains a place where parents feel safe to let their children freely roam, bike, climb and play.

I heard about this community long before I arrived in Davis, Calif. It was described to me as a sort of Shire — a Tolkienesque place with no fences and bountiful amounts of produce waiting to be plucked by residents or, sometimes, plundered by passersby. Street names in Village Homes are literally taken from The Lord of the Rings novels so, naturally, as a fan of Middle-Earth (and a lover of free citrus), I couldn’t wait to visit.

Last fall, Tim McNeil, professor of design at UC Davis, finally gave me a reason: an upcoming exhibit opening at the Design Museum this month.

In honor of the community’s 50th anniversary, McNeil and guest curator, Adrienne McGraw, have been looking at the history of the community, its successes and failures, and the innovative thinking that is still missing from some of today’s subdivisions.

The more I learned about Village Homes, the more convinced I became that it, despite its age, could be a model for the future, an answer to some of the societal problems we grapple with today. Village Homes seems to be a unique place providing many of the things people need and crave, such as shelter and safety, privacy as well as community, and opportunities to save money on food, gas, water and electricity.

But it almost didn’t get built. Skeptics were all around — at the banks, real estate offices and even the City of Davis. It was too different, too experimental, too socialist.

Then, suddenly, too in-demand. Within a year of the first home being built, Village Homes was the most sought after neighborhood in town. Even today, homes sell high and fast, and many would-be residents remain on a sort-of waitlist, hoping to experience the magic of Village Homes — a taste of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Shire within driving distance to Interstate-80.

Read on to learn more about what makes this subdivision so special and visit the exhibit, “Village Homes: A Radical Plan,” Jan. 20 through June 19. 

Rethinking the great American suburb

Though the word “suburb” merely describes the outskirts of a city, the idea of the suburb as a utopia for growing families really took shape in the U.S. between the 1920s and 1940s. Rising incomes and increasing car ownership gave the white middle-class greater ability to leave the city and drive to greener, more sprawling neighborhoods.

While many bought into the two-car garage and white picket fence fantasy, Village Homes developers Michael and Judy Corbett rebuffed this idea. Instead, they imagined a neighborhood without fences where walking and cycling were easy to do and safe, where the presence of cars was minimized, and where neighbors — friends — would convene in common outdoor spaces.

“One of the things that American counterculture was reacting against was that kind of, like, crushing conformity,” said Simon Sadler, professor of design at UC Davis. “The sense that life is about earning a living wage: get up, go to work, come home.”

Michael, a local builder, and Judy, who studied social and environmental psychology under Robert Sommer at UC Davis, didn’t want to give up on society completely by running away and starting a commune. They wanted to figure out a different way — a better way — of living within a town or city.

“I think what happened with Village Homes is, the instigators of it say, ‘Well, why don’t we take another look at that suburban ideal? Why don’t we try and recapture what was going to be great about that?’” Sadler said.

The green space, the bike lanes, the contact with neighbors and nature — they were designed with a tenet of ecology in mind, Sadler added. Namely, how everything, every individual component, operates as part of a system.

“The original vision was to build solar houses in a community where people knew each other, grew fruit and vegetables in the green belts,” Michael said during an interview in 2000. “Just, really, much more of a natural setting that was very, very low in energy consumption.”

Something seemed to have been lost in the culture of suburban life and Michael and Judy hoped Village Homes, if designed correctly, would bring back not only the sense of community and belonging they longed for but also a sense of responsibility and accountability. A place where your neighbors are your friends and, together, everyone works to maintain and cultivate a healthy, vibrant and safe community.

They soon found the right spot, about 70 acres on the west side of Davis, and, with the help of some early investors, bought it. They would build this neighborhood with creative thinking, planning, resourcefulness, determination, timing and a bit of luck. 

A time for change 

It was the mid-1970s and a younger, more progressive city council was thinking a lot about the environment and energy usage. They implemented curbside recycling programs, supported the development of bike lanes and paths, and implemented new building requirements for energy conservation.

“The community starts to evolve towards a sort of greener, more convivial community, trying to instate some of the spirit of the 1960s but in a sort of calmer, college town, orderly, grown-up way,” Sadler said.

And, despite some city staff concerns over certain innovations, the council approved the plan for Village Homes, which broke ground in 1975.

Their openness to new ideas paid off. Village Homes was a near-instant success. 

Designing with ecology in mind

Part of Village Homes’ success is that it was designed with ecology in mind.

“There were a lot of opportunities to try new technologies in energy conservation and solar,” said Virginia Thigpen, resident and builder. “In a way, it was a perfect storm of people who were getting involved with building solar systems, like solar water heating systems, and incorporating those into houses.”

Every house incorporates passive solar, and, instead of large lots with expansive yards, nearly half of the land was reserved for common areas and permeable space. There is a system of swales and basins that naturally retain rainwater and prevent flooding.

“Every drop of rainwater that falls in Village Homes, stays in Village Homes," multiple residents said. That water then percolates back into the soil, nurturing the fruit trees, the community garden and other flora growing in the neighborhood. 

"A lot of people think of Village Homes as a solar community," McNeil said, "in fact, it's been named America's first solar community — but it's also really America's first natural urban watershed.”

Houses are closer together on the east and west, while the windows look onto more open areas, facing north and south. This configuration, McNeil said, takes advantage of the low sun in winter and mitigates the most intense heat from the sun during the summer.

“Nearly every house also had solar collectors which are basically tanks on the roof to heat water,” he added, “so water would be pumped into these tanks and heated by the sun and that would be used in the house for washing, laundry and heating or it might be all stored in your regular water and then distributed as needed.”

The innovative and experimental ideas attracted a lot of attention. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, several celebrities and politicians visited the new development, including former French President François Mitterrand, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, and actress and activist Jane Fonda.

A do-it-yourself (but with help) mindset

Unlike some subdivisions, there are no cookie-cutter, copy-and-paste houses in Village Homes. The lack of uniformity in architectural design, however, doesn’t mean a lack of functional intent. In fact, functionality and practicality are a focal point of the community.

Though he could have — and would have made more profit if he did, Michael didn’t build all the homes himself. He allowed a variety of other builders into Village Homes, including smaller builders and the homeowners themselves. For the community first residents, this helped make buying in more affordable.

“In the very early days, there was a lot of blank, flat lands, no trees and people just moved into this bare, new neighborhood,” Thigpen said. “This is not the kind of neighborhood where the builder provided a finished landscape and fences and everything, so people were very do-it-yourselfer types who didn’t have a lot of extra money to spend on things.”

According to Thigpen, that do-it-yourself mentality forged connections between community members, who referred to themselves as “small builders,” each one learning from the other.

Judy, taking what she learned in environmental psychology, had the idea to incorporate common spaces into the community while maintaining separate areas within the home and small backyard.

“First of all, you need privacy if there’s going to be community and, the other thing, community happens when there’s a space for you to come together but also a reason for you to come together,” she said. “So the common areas were set up with joint management responsibilities in clusters of eight. That number came about in studies that show when are the most people participating in group conversation without somebody taking dominance.”

The new homeowners were given the ability to decide what their common areas would look like. Those areas are each different. There are playgrounds, barbecues, fruit trees and gardens.

“And one of the best things there we designed: a brick patio with a fire pit in the middle. I'd say probably for a period of time, 2-3 nights a week, we would all gather out there with our babies and our hotdogs,” Thigpen remembered. “I think the empowerment that came from getting to design and build it ourselves made for a very close-knit group of eight homes.”

It takes a village to meet the needs of a community

Research shows that, in addition to having our basic needs met, contact with nature, community engagement and having a sense of belonging help make us happier. But most places in the U.S. weren’t built with these human needs in mind. Instead, we face a loneliness epidemic while struggling to afford housing, childcare, healthcare and even groceries.

“Village Homes provides the things that people need,” said Carol Hillhouse, resident and former associate director of the Student Farm at UC Davis. “And those are easy connection to other people — that’s a human need — through community, and really strong connection to the land. And that’s through our garden plots or through the things that we can do in our common areas. Those connections to other people and land, I think, are really part of what allow us to feel comfortable and happy here.”

Utility bills are low. Produce is fresh and freely available. There are playgrounds, bike paths, wide-open spaces, a community garden, heated swimming pool and a full calendar of community events.

For resident Lyla Schoenig, growing up in Village Homes was like a “fairytale.” She could adventure and play freely. Even at six years old, she was allowed to bike around the community on her own, her parents comfortable with how safe it felt.

It just felt like the ultimate freedom.

— Lyla Schoenig, Village Homes resident

And, unlike so many other places in the U.S., Village Homes still feels that way. There’s enough visibility that everyone can look out for each other and, especially, keep an eye on the kids — and pets — in the neighborhood.

Recreating something akin to Village Homes, capturing its magic, wouldn’t be difficult to do, according to McNeil, but there has to be the political will to do it.

“I walk around that community every morning and I see people I know – maybe I stop for conversation or wave to them, but I feel like I'm really connected to that neighborhood,” McNeil said. “It makes me feel like I belong to something much bigger and that's, I think, what many of us are seeking.” 

Editor’s note: This story was written based on several interviews with McNeil and McGraw in addition to interviews featured in “Village Homes: A Radical Plan,” the documentary included in the museum exhibit. That film was funded through UCD’s TGIF program and produced by UC Davis students. Other oral histories used in the film were conducted in partnership with Shield Library’s Archive & Special Collections and oral historian is Shanna M. Farrell. 

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