The Making of Williamsburg Lane
“Country Life with City Conveniences”
In Case you missed our Bi-monthly Rolling Hills Newsletter, here is the article we posted on our front page, in continuation of our History of Rolling Hills we decided to make this month all about the street Williamsburg Lane, which has a lot of history & where we happen to have one of our listings for sale on Williamsburg Lane. This street has so much charm & exquisite architecture that can still be seen today. The following is taken from the book Rolling Hills: The Early Years by A.E. Hanson
“ Williamsburg Lane, Virginia was the outgrowth of a number of visits I made to the Eastern seacoast. As a landscape architect, I was fascinated by what the Rockefeller family was doing to restore the original old, southern-colonial city of Williamsburg, Virginia. At one time, Williamsburg was the State capitol of Virginia.
To an architect and to a landscape architect, Williamsburg is seventh heaven. It is living history, and I wish every American family with teen-aged children could have the opportunity to travel to Williamsburg and see how America really started.
In Williamsburg, Virginia I fell in love with the housing of the craftsmen, villagers, and shopkeepers who lived there prior to the American Revolution. The design of these homes was Georgian. They were very small cottages, and were fine in detail. I thought what fun it would be to do a whole lane in Rolling Hills patterned after the small houses of Williamsburg.
Homes on Williamsburg Lane, Rolling Hills were going for sale for under $9000, what a steal & great investment.
When I returned to Rolling Hills I couldn’t get that idea of my mind. What fun it would be to build a village lane with all the homes made of wood, painted white – and I knew I would like to live in any one of the homes that I had in mind.
I contacted Paul Williams, (he had a particular talent in designing fine Georgian home for very wealthy clients) and suggested that he design an entire lane of homes for me – fourteen, to be exact. The land that I had chosen was just to the west of Acacia Road, on a ridge.
Financially, it was a very successful project, and anyone looking at the original advertisements shown in the counter book at the City Hall of Rolling Hills can see how great a bargain it turned out to be. One could buy an acre of land, a beautiful little house, landscaped with full-grown olive trees – all for $8,750.00. It was quite a bargain, and people bought them.”
PAGE 76. Excerpt from, Rolling Hills: The Early Years by A.E. Hanson
This photo shows the three original houses on Williamsburg Lane
