JAMES CITY — The owner of Kingsmill Resort has launched an effort to build 32 homes in the heart of the 2,900-acre community, but the site chosen for the neighborhood isn’t sitting well among homeowners within Kingsmill on the James.
Last month, Kingsmill Resort owner Escalante Golf submitted to James City County a conceptual plan for the Frances Thacker subdivision — on land already zoned for single-family homes. But some residents say that the new homes would spoil ground that’s an important link to Kingsmill’s history and a place for community events.
Fort Worth-based Escalante Golf, which owns 23 golf properties nationwide, bought Kingsmill Resort in 2017 from Xanterra Parks & Resorts for $30.7 million. The previous owner, Anheuser-Busch, began developing Kingsmill more than 50 years ago. In addition to the resort, Kingsmill includes approximately 2,400 homes.
Joel Paige, senior vice president of operations for Escalante and a Kingsmill resident since 2019, said the idea is to invest in Kingsmill and enhance the community.
“Escalante is a privately held family business,” he said. “We buy things and don’t sell. We are long-term thinkers.”
Paige pointed to the recent development of the 24-unit community within Kingsmill called The Enclave. According to Paige, demand for those homes was extremely high, and that sort of eagerness increases the value of all properties in Kingsmill.
However, a number of residents take issue with the location of the proposed subdivision, according to Margaret Fowler, who has lived in Kingsmill since 2006.
“This would sit right in front of and destroy the 18th-century site that is our namesake,” Fowler said.
The homes would be built immediately adjacent to the site of Kingsmill Plantation’s main house, which was built circa 1736. Although the manor no longer stands, its foundation remains, as do two brick dependencies, which date to around the same period as the main house.
According to the conceptual plan submitted to the county’s planning department, several homes would be within 150 feet of the eastern dependency, with one roughly 50 feet away. Homes would also be constructed on an open, multiuse field known by residents as the soccer field.
Archaeologist William Kelso, author of “Kingsmill Plantations 1619-1800: Archaeology of Country Life in Colonial Virginia,” led excavations of Kingsmill sites in the 1970s when Anheuser-Busch began development of the sprawling community. Kelso believes that building on the adjacent land would compromise the spatial significance of the site of the mansion and dependencies.
Kelso said that the two dependencies are among the nation’s oldest surviving brick utility buildings that were made by and for enslaved people.
Last year, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources matched more than $176,000 in federal funds that allowed the state office to preserve and catalog some 60,000 artifacts excavated from the Kingsmill Plantation site in the 1970s.
Kelso also said that evidence suggests that soccer field site is likely rich in archaeological treasures, including the remnants of a formal landscape garden and possibly burials of enslaved people.
“An intensive archaeological survey of this soccer field can answer that question and reveal more of the 18th-century landscape design,” he said. “The planned development would build over it.”
Paige is not sure the soccer field contains such significant remnants of the past and believes that much of it is comprised of fill from construction. But regardless of what lies buried, Paige said, Escalante will follow all rules and regulations in the course of development, including a Phase I archaeological investigation.
Paige also said that residential development and historic preservation in Kingsmill are compatible, evidenced by the many homes and historic sites that already exist side-by-side.
The other primary objection against the development is the loss of community space. John McGlennon, supervisor for James City County’s Roberts District, where Kingsmill is located, said that he has met with residents and the loss of recreational space was among the chief concerns.
For decades, people have used the area for gatherings small and large ranging from dog play dates to Independence Day celebrations.
McGlennon said that when Escalante unveiled its vision for the development, company officials assured the community that they would have an alternative location for gathering, but nothing so far in the plan suggests where that space might be designated.
According to Paige, Kingsmill has several places at which gatherings can take place. Last November, for instance, the community hosted a classic car show in a central and accessible location on resort property, he said.
In January, Escalante asked some members of the board of directors of the community’s homeowners association, Kingsmill Community Services Association, to make an offer on the property. In March, KCSA made a $2 million offer for the land in an effort to preserve it. Escalante did not entertain the offer when KCSA members presented it.
Paige said that he and his Escalante colleagues understand the community concerns, but that ultimately the new subdivision will be a positive development for Kingsmill at large.
“When a community is 50 years old, it has usually already peaked or is starting down past its prime,” Paige said. “Kingsmill, by every metric, continues to grow. That’s one of the things that attracted Escalante.
“We believe in building and keeping the community on an uptick. There is high demand for living the Kingsmill lifestyle inside the gates.”
Ben Swenson, ben.swenson05@gmail.com
