Please use Memorial Hill entrance for construction to minimize cleanup
Where possible, please instruct your construction teams to use the Memorial Hill Entrance. This will help us keep the roads as clean as possible.
Construction garbage... and the wind
We have had a significant problem with construction materials blowing around the project--particularly in the river corridor. The problem is significant enough that we are now sending our landscape team into the river area each day to ensure it stays clean. Please ensure that your construction site stays clean, and that everythign is tied down. The combintion of the afternoon wind and our proximity to the river makes this especially challenging.
Are the trees dead?
The variety of trees we have planted tend to leaf out very last in the spring. Thankfully, we are seeing many of the trees begin to bud out and we hope more are waking up... However, we are likely to lose many of them given the tenderness of first year trees and the rare weather conditions last fall.
This year has been an apocolypse for trees of all kind in the valley, but especially new trees. I have talked with multiple developments that lost all new trees planted last summer, and we lost eight mature trees in one of my other developments. There are probably multiple reasons for this, but the most significant seems to be the wild temperature drop we experienced this fall, when temperatures dropped from a consistent 80 degrees to a period of zero degrees. A hard, prolonged freeze during the growing season will crack the trunks and branches and effectively kill many otherwise hardy trees.
The variety of trees we've planted are London Plain Trees (Exclamation variety). They are more resistant to "frost crack" than other varietites, and we've had many survive. However, a tree's first year is always the hardest, and many may have died as a result. We will watch them for another few weeks and then begin the replacement process.
Clubhouse and Ammenities
The clubhouse, pool, courts, and fencing are all under way. However, this has been a particularly challenging year. Given the COVID shutdowns, materials and labor are in particularly short supply. See ammenities layout here. Here are some updates on some of the key amenity features:
Fencing. We have been trying to get fence materials since February, and the response is always that they material is another 4-6 weeks away. Some suppliers have said they are shutting sales down for the year because they can't supply the orders they've already taken. Our fencing crew is available, and waiting the "4-6 weeks for material." We'll keep checking in.
Tennis Courts. Tennis courts must be built in the summer and our supplier had planned to start at the end of May/First of June. So far we appear to be on schedue, Parkin (our tennis court builder) has committed a start time between June 5th and June 10th. See tennis court rendering here.
Clubhouse. We have purchased a historic barn frame from Heritage Barns ("The Hamilton Barn" pre 1860s), which will create an incredible interior experience to complement the exterior architecture we have designed. However, the historic beams have created an engineering challenge (a specialty that requies a rare engineering team/process) that has delayed us a little. We now have an engineering team completing this step and shoud be submitting to the city shortly. The extra beauty and detail will be worth the wait. See the original hand hewn beams here.
Pool. Similar to the clubhouse, in an effort to excede design expectations we have delayed the starting time for the pool. This spring, our architect, and California Pools (our pool buildler) attempted to add an infinity edge to the pool design to act as a security fence, and to maximize views from the pool to the pond. Unfortunately, we have not been able to get approval for this design, so we are moving ahead with the old design. We will be landscaping and contouring to minimize the effects the security fence will have on the view of the pond from the pool. See pool design here.
Ponds. We are currently installing a piping and pump system between the two ponds to promote clenliness and keep a healthy flow in the stream between the ponds. The large pond by the clubhouse is not holding water as well as it should, so we will also be draining and resealing the large pond during pool constuction.