Villagio at Serrano: Serenity, Security and Natural Elegance

Villagio at Serrano, located in the rolling foothills of the Sierra Mountains in El Dorado Hills, California. Come experience the romantic look and feel of a delightful small town, with all the conveniences of living in the city. The neighborhhood has a mediteranean - Andalusian feel and is among of the most prestigious master-planned communities in Northern California. Elegant views, harmony with nature, elite schools, beautiful parks, quality shopping and great dining spots, as well as easy access to sacramento and Hwy 50. This is a great place to raise a family with its quiet streets. Villagio offers serenity, security, and a place that you can call home.

Serrano in El Dorado Hills

Serrano of El Dorado Hills is a 3,500-acre gated golf course community in El Dorado Hills, northern California, 30 minutes away from Sacramento, and between Lake Tahoe and the Napa Valley. With it's gated villages and quiet streets, Serrano offers peace and security with its friendly neighborhoods and breathtaking views. With miles and miles of biking trails, nearby schools, a first-class country club, hundreds of acres of open space, and a champion golf course, Serrano is truly the premiere place to live.

FACT:
Serrano of El Dorado Hills was named:
1997 Community of the Year by the National Association of Home Builders’ National Sales & Marketing Council
1997 & 1998 Master-Planned Community of the Year by the Building Industry Association of Superior California

Real Estate

The top Realtor in Serrano I found was Pat Seide.

Pat Seide Realtor
(916) 712-1617
patricia.seide@cbnorcal.com





Coming soon in 2009 Isra Shakir Shatnawi. A name you can trust.

Environment

Serrano has about 1000 acres of land dedicated to open space. This land will always remain a peaceful place that "respects the balance between nature and man". There are miles and miles of trails throughout the area (right near the residential areas!). If you are lucky you'll see some of the area's wildlife: deer, rabbits, wild turkeys, turtles, and even rattlesnakes sometimes. In addition, the Serrano Homeowner's Association has even planted thousands of new oak trees to further beautify the Serrano landscape.

Environmentally Friendly
All homes in Serrano of El Dorado Hills are required to use recycled water in their front and backyard in order to be environmentally friendly. The recycled water is delivered through purple colored pipes that are clearly labeled and are separate from the drinking water – a system that, according to the Serrano Homeowner's Association, puts Serrano in the forefront of environmentally friendly technology and development. This water system is important to keep the community looking green year-round.

Entertainment

The Bella Terra Park
Looking for a nice place to take the kids? Located conveniently just inside the Villagio gated community there is a beautiful park. Great for barbecues, picnics, sports, and exercise!



Sports & Recreation

The El Dorado Hills Community Services District (CSD) operates 134 acres of parks in the El Dorado Hills area and 33-acres of open space. The CSD offers swimming lessons, and swim-team competitions, day camps, pre-schools, cooking classes, water polo, basketball courts, ballroom dancing, tennis lessons, senior fitness and nutrition classes, and summer concerts. For mre information on sprts and recreation click here.

Serrano Country Club
5005 Serrano Pkwy
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
(916) 933-5716‎
(916) 933-5005‎
(916) 939-8630‎

For those of you who like golf this video is for you, and those of you who don't after you see this you will want to give it a wirl! To find out more information on the Serrano Country Club click here. WOW! Enjoy the video!



Shopping & Dining:
El Dorado Hills Town Center

El Dorado Hills Town Center is home to many one-of-a-kind gift shops, art galleries and exclusive retail boutiques to insure interesting shopping adventures. For even the most discerning palette, visitors can enjoy fine dining at one of the many restaurants in the Town Center. Town Center hosts several events each year, the El Dorado Hills Art & Wine Affaire, Certified Farmer’s Markets and the Rotary Wine & Cheese. For complete listings of businesses in the El Dorado Hills Town Center click here.

Politics

In the state legislature El Dorado Hills is located in the 1st Senate District, represented by Republican Dave Cox, and in the 10th Assembly District, represented by Republican Alan Nakanishi. Federally, El Dorado Hills is located in California's 4th congressional district, which has a Cook PVI of R +11 and was represented by John Doolittle. The 2008 congressional seat election resulted in a virtual tie between retired Air Force Officer Charlie Brown (Democrat) and Southern California politician Tom McClintock (Republican). The outcome is still undetermined as of November 17, 2008.
As an unincorporated area the local government of El Dorado Hills is that of El Dorado County. Three supervisorial districts include parts of El Dorado Hills. District 1 is represented by Rusty Dupray, District 2 by Helen Baumann, and District 4 by Ron Briggs.
A number of services are provided by other local agencies. These include the El Dorado Hills Community Services District (CSD), the Springfield Meadows Community Services District, the Marble Mountain Community Services District, the El Dorado Hills County Water District (fire department), and the El Dorado Irrigation District. Also most recently a local woman Alison Huber ran for state essmebly in this past 2008 election.

Our Local Government:

El Dorado Hills Community Services District

1021 Harvard Way
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
(916) 933-6624
Fax (916) 933-6359

Board of Directors

Bill Vandegrift
President
939-0554
billyv69@sbcglobal.net

Tony Rogozinski
Vice President
939-0766
tony_rogozinski@hp.com

Larry Brilliant
Director
939-0554
lsb1048@sbcglobal.net

Justin Masters
Director
939-3309
jmasters_pub@sbcglobal.net

Rob Vomund
Director
Rob-CSD@VomundPhotography.com

El Dorado County Supervisors

Norman Santiago , Jack Sweeney,
Helen Baumann, Rusty Dupray, Ron Briggs
330 Fair Lane
Placerville, CA 95667
(530) 621-5650 or (800) 491-6642
Fax (530) 622-3645

History

China Walls
This area is full of what we've learned to call "China Walls", although scholars and amateur archaeologists have been puzzled by the walls' origins for over a century, due in large part to their apparent lack of purpose. The modest height would seem to rule out their function as fortifications, and the rambling start-and-stop patterns render them useless as corrals or containment fences.

So who built these walls and for what purpose? In 1904, Dr. John Fryer, professor of Oriental languages at UC Berkeley, declared: "This is undoubtedly the work of Mongolians... the Chinese would naturally wall themselves in, as they do in all their towns in China.

The popular and long-held notion that the walls were built by wandering visitors from Asia is not entirely without historical basis. In 1761, the noted French sinologist Deguignes returned to the West with accounts of a fifth century voyage by a group of Chinese Buddhist monks who claimed to have visited a distant land which they called Fusang. Some historians have interpreted descriptions of the voyage to support the idea that Fusang may have been California, though most agree it was more likely present-day Mexico.

There is a less far-fetched possibility that the walls were built using cheap and abundant Chinese labor left in California at the end of the Gold Rush although no direct evidence supports this view.

A turn-of-the-century ethnologist, Dr. Henry C. Meyers, PhD believed the walls were: "...Undoubtedly erected centuries ago...[could these be the work of the Aztecs? Or perhaps this is where the legendary tale of El Dorado was born.] Neither man nor men of the present day could possibly put the large stones of these walls in place without appliances of some kind."

Dr. Robert F. Fisher, the former president of the Mission Peake Heritage Foundation (there are many more such walls in the Bay Area) stated: "These walls are just enigmas. They predate the Indians. They predate the Spaniards. It doesn't fit in with any of the later history."




The Miwok & Miadu Indians
The indigenous people to this region were the Miwok & Maidu Indian tribes who split the southwestern portion of what is now El Dorado County. The Maidu tribe had vast territories to the north, while the Miwok were south with a small band along the coast. Both of these tribes were hunter gatherers. The grinding rock shown was probably used to grind the acorns from the oak trees. They would grind flour and eat it raw as a paste, they used it in soups and other dishes. Because it kept throughout the year, it was an essential part of the Indian diet


Exploration
When Spanish navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo became the first European to sight the region that is present-day California in 1542, there were about 130,000 Native Americans inhabiting the area. The territory was neglected by Spain for more than two decades (until 1769) because of reports of the region’s poverty and a general slowdown of Spanish exploration. The merchant Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed from Mexico to the southern California coast in 1602, naming San Diego, Santa Catalina Island, Santa Barbara, and Monterey. Working with inaccurate maps, Vizcaíno and several later explorers believed that California was an island and were discouraged when they were unable to chart its surrounding seas.

Settlement
Pressure for settlement came from missionaries eager to convert the Native Americans to Christianity, from the intrusion of Russian and British traders, primarily in search of sea otter pelts, and from the quest for the Northwest Passage across the North American continent. In 1769 the Spanish viceroy dispatched land and sea expeditions from Baja California, and the Franciscan friar Junípero Serra established the first mission at San Diego. Gaspar de Portolá set up a military outpost in 1770 at Monterey. Colonization began after 1773 with the opening of an overland supply route across the southwestern deserts that was intended to link other Spanish settlements in what are the present-day states of Arizona and New Mexico to the coast.
The 21 missions established by Serra and his successors were the strongest factors in developing California. While attempting to Christianize the Mission Indians, the padres taught them farming and crafts. With the forced labour of the Mission Indians, the padres irrigated vast ranches and traded hides, tallow, wine, brandy, olive oil, grain, and leatherwork for the manufactured goods brought by Yankee trading vessels around Cape Horn.



U.S. colonization and acquisition
Secularization of the missions was sought by Spanish Mexican settlers known as Californios when Mexico became independent of Spain in 1821. Between 1833 and 1840 the mission ranches were parceled out to political favourites by the Mexican government. The padres withdrew, and the Native Americans were cruelly exploited and diminished. In 1841 the first wagon train of settlers left Missouri for California. The colony grew slowly, but in 1846 the Northwest became a part of the United States, and settlers at Sonoma proclaimed an independent California republic during the Bear Flag Revolt. In May the United States declared war on Mexico, and in July the U.S. flag was raised at Monterey. Minor skirmishes occurred before the Californios surrendered to troops under John C. Frémont near Los Angeles in January 1847. Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding to the United States a vast area of the Southwest that included all of present-day California. For the area of El Dorado Hills there were no Spanish or Mexican land grants.


The Gold Rush
Early in 1848 James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey, picked up nuggets of gold from the American River at the site of a sawmill (John Sutter’s Mill) he was building near Coloma. (This discovery occurred just nine days before the end of the Mexican-American War.) By August the hillsides above the river were strewn with the tents and wood huts of the first 4,000 gold miners. From the East, prospectors sailed around Cape Horn or risked disease hiking across the Isthmus of Panama. The hardiest took the 2,000-mile (3,220-km) overland route, on which cholera proved a far greater killer than the Native Americans. About 40,000 people arrived at San Francisco by boat in 1849. Some 6,000 wagons, carrying about 40,000 more fortune seekers, moved west that year over the California Trail. Few of the prospectors struck it rich. The work was hard, prices were high, and living conditions were primitive. The wiser immigrants became farmers and storekeepers.
The Gold Rush hastened statehood in 1850 (as a part of the Compromise of 1850); and, though the Gold Rush peaked in 1852, the momentum of settlement did not subside. Nearly $2 billion in gold was extracted from the earth before mining became virtually dormant.



The Modern history
The modern history of El Dorado Hills dates back to the early 1960s when original developer Alan Lindsey began its development as a master planned community. The original master plan, prepared by architect Victory Gruen, covered the area generally north of U.S. Highway 50, and part of the area south of US 50 now considered to be part of the community. El Dorado Hills was envisioned as a large-scale master-planned community that would be completely planned from its inception as a group of residential "villages". Other land uses in the master plan included a business park, two 18-hole golf courses, community parks, schools, a community shopping center, and small commercial centers in each village. The master plan emphasized open space between villages and opportunity for outdoor recreation.
Between the late '60s and mid-1990s growth occurred at a moderate pace as new families relocated from Sacramento, Southern California and the Bay Area. This growth consisted primarily of residential housing, as retail developments were limited to two shopping centers on the corners Green Valley & Francisco and El Dorado Hills Blvd. & Hwy. 50. Each neighborhood created during this time period was given a name and referred to as a "village" by the local inhabitants. The original villages of El Dorado Hills include Park Village, Ridgeview, Saint Andrews, Crown, Governor's Village, Marina Village and Lake Hills Estates. In the 1980s and 1990s the major part of Lake Hills Estates was reorganized into Lake Forest Village, containing the neighborhoods of Waterford, The Summit, Green Valley Hills, Winterhaven, Marina Woods and Windsor Point. Additional villages that have developed subsequently include Fairchild, Sterlingshire, Highland Hills, Highland View and the master-planned community of Serrano.
By the 1990 census, El Dorado Hills had an estimated population of 6,395 residents. Growth slowed during the early part of the 90's due to an economic recession throughout California, but resumed at a staggering pace by the mid 1990s. Businesses, particularly those interested in escaping the high costs of Silicon Valley began to set up operations in the El Dorado Hills Business Park south of Highway 50. In 1995, the Parker Development Company acquired 3,500 acres (14 km2) along the eastern boundary of El Dorado Hills to create Serrano, one of the largest master planned communities in Northern California. Serrano was the site of an innovative case of recycled water irrigation on a large scale.

Demographics

El Dorado County:
Population in July 2007: 20,143.
Males: 10,037 (49.8%)
Females: 10,106 (50.2%)
Median resident age: 37.6 years
California median age: 33.3 years

Zip code: 95762.

Estimated median household income in 2007: $116,551 (it was $93,483 in 2000)
El Dorado Hills: $116,551
California: $59,948

Estimated median house or condo value in 2007: $735,020 (it was $277,900 in 2000)
El Dorado Hills: $735,020
California: $532,300

Mean prices in 2007: All housing units: $789,294; Detached houses: $791,550; Townhouses or other attached units: $625,389; Mobile homes: $78,271

Races in El Dorado Hills:

* White Non-Hispanic (87.0%)
* Hispanic (5.0%)
* Two or more races (3.0%)
* Other race (1.4%)
* American Indian (1.1%)
* Chinese (1.0%)
* Asian Indian (0.9%)
* Black (0.8%)
* Filipino (0.7%)

El Dorado Hills was mainly a bedroom community from its origin in 1962 until nearly the end of the 20th century. Around the year 2000 its population growth and commercial development accelerated. Development began in its Town Center area to form a true downtown business area, and its Business Park experienced increasing rates of construction and occupancy. To learn more click here.

The Villagian Residence


I interviewed 10 different villagian neighbors here is what they said.
About living in Villagio:

Quotes:
"It doesn't get much louder than this here."(sound of her daughter's 5th birthday)
-Isabella chocanova

"I love it, you will always see us walking here in the afternoon. Its beautiful."
- Ron Betcher

"I like how its so safe. I have a 3 year old and I thought of her when I moved here."
- Cita Roman

"Its quiet, and peaceful. I moved her a few years ago before my wife and I retired. I love it here."
- Mike Porter

"I love to golf and the golf course is close by. My wife likes shopping and she doesn't have to go far."
Paul Johnston

"I never see my neighbors that much I am always working. I like living here I don't have to drive far to work. The neighbors seam nice. I get home late so I don't see much of them."
Tuan Nguyen

"I like it here its quiet. You have to have approval to plant in the backyard. Its nice they do the front yard. I wish I could plant a another tree here in the front but its not allowed."
-Le Lam

"My husband imports and exports cars, he travels often. I like living here because I always feel safe here with the kids."
- Athena Giannopoulos

"I like the environment I like to go driving around. My son plays soccer at the park right here."
-Sam Waller

"I like living here. If you have friends come visit just make sure they don't park on the street over night because they will ticket you."
-Jenna Miller


8 out of the ten of these Villagio residents were from the Bay Area.
8 out of the ten had kids under the age of 18.
5 out of the ten residents claim to be republicans, 1 was undecided, and the final 4 were democrats.
all 4 of the women i interviewed were stay at home moms, with working husbands.
1 was of the residents was a retired couple.
all 10 residents graduated from college.
all 10 residents when asked if they enjoy living here they all said yes. They all like living in Villagio at Serrano.