MR. CHESTER’S NEIGHBORHOOD

By Lisa and Duffy Dyer

To family and friends, far and near, human and canine.

1

Oh Look! A visitor – I LOVE visitors!

Woof! I’m Chester. Great to meet you! Thanks for stopping by.

What’s my story, you ask? About two and a half years ago, I laid a heavy dose of big, brown puppy dog eyes on my parents so that I could escape a Fairfax Virginia shelter laden with 22 mischievous, whining felines. I just had to get out of there, and man, did I luck out! I landed here in this Den of Paradise called Dominion Valley Country Club in Haymarket, VA. Although a bit stunned with the drive to Haymarket since I never left the DC area before, I didn’t care cause I was out of that cat frenzy. As you would expect, being a pooch, I circled my new home and started sniffing around a bit. This place really is a slice of heaven for dogs and the humans here seem to love it too. It’s a cool place with tons of stuff to do. The community’s motto is “A Lifetime of Saturdays”. What more could a dog ask for?

The Dominion Valley property is about 2400 acres with LOTS of room for bright yellow fire hydrants ☺! Toll Brothers, the national luxury homebuilder, purchased it around 2006. Word has it that Disney tried to buy this land in hopes of creating a history-based theme park to play off the nearby Manassas battlefield. The Haymarket locals protested the Disney purchase and that’s when Toll Brothers bought the land and developed this really fun planned community. And thank goodness….can you IMAGINE all the mice that would be here?? May be a cat’s delight, but not mine!

We’ve got it all here: awesome houses of all sizes, great schools, two 18-hole Arnold Palmer golf courses, swimming pools, ten-nis courts, a shopping center with restaurants and a gas station, a stocked fishing lake and ponds, and 17 miles of beautiful hiking, biking and equestrian trails (with plenty of trees to take care of “business”). Oh – and I hear the food at the Country Club restaurant is pretty awesome…my folks keep raving about the burgers. Too bad they don’t share .

Enough chitchat. I want to show you around! Get your sunscreen, grab the leash and let’s go for a walk. At each stop, unhook the leash so my pal “Cheese” can take some poses of me! As you can see, I’m unabashedly handsome…and…a ham. My Dad says I’m a knucklehead, but who cares – all the babes in the neighborhood can’t resist rubbing my belly ….heh…heh. Off we GO!

2

This is our home.

My folks built a house from the Village Collec-tion, which are single-family homes with cute porches and garages behind the homes. Our yard is not huge, but it’s easy to maintain which my Pops loves.

I have many people friends. Our neighbors are awesome and most of them adore me so I’m very happy ☺! Many of our neighbors are re-

tired military or active duty military so they understand my sporting a USMC collar.

When the windows are open sometimes the neighbors come and chat with me. And some-times we walk or I hang out at their place when my folks are away. Life sure is SWEET!

3

We live on Londons Bridge Road, a short walk to our neighborhood gate. Each neighborhood in Dominion Valley is gated and I heard that our gate is the strictest! The guards are really nice to me though. There’s a pretty fountain in the “mini park” right by the gate. A splash of cool water on a hot summer day after a long walk is a dog’s delight ☺.

4

The Waverly Club is also in our gated area. It sports a fit-ness room with both indoor and outdoor swimming pools. When the Waverly Club opened sometime ago, my mom was pretty happy because she loves to swim laps and it’s only a few blocks away.

There’s also a fun play area and great-smelling walking trails behind the club.

5

There’s this majestic white house in our area just down the street from our home. It’s called the Squire House, named after the last residents of the home. The Heineken family from Germany built it in the 1800’s and the land around the home was a farm and vineyard. After the civil war ended, soldiers came to the house looking for shelter and food. Toll Brothers renovated and updated the house and it is now for sale. I’ve never been inside but the out-side looks so pretty. My mom calls it the “Gone with the Wind” house (I hear the term “Frankly, my dear” allot).

I love the shade from the big old trees in front of the house – man, if those trees could talk – they’ve seen a lot of human history.

The original driveway to the house is now a walking path, and it’s my favorite path because it leads right to a big park.

Let’s go there NOW!

6

I walk to Long Park almost every day with either my Dad or my Mom, but mostly with Dad as we make a great exercise team. Long Park is a public park, not part of Dominion Valley, directly across James Madison Highway and just a few blocks from our house.

I love “my” park - so much to do! We walk all over and sometimes watch soccer games or people riding horses.

And the views are lovely – we can see the foothills of the Bull Run Mountains.

There are several baseball diamonds that I really like to play in. I lost count on how many baseballs I’ve found. Pops has been try-ing to get me to do the “fetch” thing, but I’m no retriever. I’m a chick mag-net and a cinch for belly rubs, so rolling over is my thing!

7

Let’s go back across James Madison Highway and enter Dominion Valley again from Waverly Farm Drive.

Now I’ll show you where the schools are…..

8

While we’re walking, let me fill you in.

Dominion Valley hosts 4 schools: Gravely and Alvey ele-mentary schools, Ronald Reagan middle school and Battlefield high school. I’ve heard people say that they are all schools of excellence in the state of Virginia.

I don’t know what the classes are like, but I do know they have some great walking and play areas attached to them!

9

Gravely Elementary, named after a U.S. Navy Admiral, is the closest school to our house, just outside our gate and across the street, so we go there a lot.

Behind the school is a big playground, and beyond that is a little wooden bridge over a creek that leads us to a really big open field where Dad lets me run. Woods surround the field so there’s often the wonderful surprise scent of deer families hanging out there. Unfortunately they run when they see me – I can’t imagine why.

One time, I bent down to sniff a “rock” but when my nose touched it, the “rock” moved! It was a big old turtle from the creek. I think he was lost. Mom yanked my chain real-ly hard because she thought it might be a snapping turtle – a snap from him would have hurt all right.

Now let’s go see the other schools…..

10

These are Alvey Elementary, Ronald Reagan Middle and Battlefield High schools.

Now let’s go look at fun amenities for people next!

11

Do you golf? I’ve seen my folks’ clubs in the garage, but I don’t think they get used much right now…..maybe when life slows down some.

Here’s the lovely Dominion Valley golf course. It’s an Arnold Palmer course and rumor has it he comes here now and then to play. I’m not allowed on Arnold’s course but I would love to roll around in that nice plushy grass!

12

This is the Dominion Valley Country Club. I hear the restaurant on the low-er level has great food…that’s where my folks get those awesome burgers that they don’t share!

And the Sports Pavilion hosts a large fitness center, a beautiful outdoor swimming pool and a fun playground.

Tennis anyone?

Now let’s cross the street and do some shopping!

13

Here’s our community shopping center. I’ve never been in the grocery store, but mom usually comes out of there with a cup that has a green logo on it. There are also some great restaurants and several retail shops.

We fill up the “Chester Mobile” at the gas station because my folks get gas points when they shop at the grocery store.

Tell my Dad, it’s good for dogs to “Eat more Chickin ☺”!!

This is where that great-smelling pizza comes from!

14

Now that we’re done shopping, let’s head to the lake!

Here we are at Silver Lake, which is just beyond Ronald Reagan Middle School. It’s a pretty spot, just a short drive away. The lake is 23 acres and filled with fish. I wish I liked the water – I’d dive in and catch some! Silver lake belongs to Prince William County but backs up to Dominion Valley, which is convenient for residents and their dogs. It is surrounded with tree-lined hiking and equestrian trails, which I have to share with massive horse beasts!

Now that you’ve seen all the cool stuff to do here, let me show you where my mom works here in the community….

15

This is the Visitors Center where my mom works part-time for Toll Brothers - she greets new home shoppers, talks about the community and points them in the right direction. New home shoppers get a gate pass here too so they can view the model homes in the gated neighborhoods. She works in those sometimes too. She loves her commute – it’s never more than 2 miles!

There are big maps of the property and video screens showing all the types of homes.

Personally I love the cool golf cart! ☺ Let’s check out the model homes now… We’ll start with the smallest single-family home collection and work up to the biggest. There are townhomes here also, but along with the Village Collection, to which our house belongs, are no longer being built.

16

This is the Carolina Collection model home.

And across the street from our gated area is the Villa Collection model home.

17

Dominion Valley is about 75% complete so they’ll probably be building homes here for a few more years. I keep making more and more dog friends as they move in…..it’s tail-wagging good!

Now that you’ve seen what Toll Brothers is still building here, let me take you to our final stop – the Regency at Dominion Valley which is the active adult neighborhood. We’re almost done!

And back by the Carolina Collection model home is the Executive Collection model home.

The last and biggest model home belongs to the Estate Collection through yet another gate.

18

All the single-family homes have been built and sold, but they are still building condos here (sometimes my mom works in the condo office too).

The Regency neighborhood is in the middle of the Dominion Valley property. The residents here are age 55 or older (but the dogs don’t have to be 55). They have their own 18-hole golf course, clubhouse and tons of activi-

ties and clubs year round. And I’ve seen some great-looking dogs!

19

There are beautiful wooded walking trails here too, with tons of stuff to sniff.

Let’s head home now – it’s been a LONG walk!

But the best part is the dog park! But again, that “fetch” thing gets the best of me…..

20

Ahhhh……the comforts of HOME! Well, I hope you enjoyed our walk! I know I did. You got to see our community and now you also have a

lovely photo collection of me at all my favorite hot spots!!

21

Thanks for visiting! Hope you come and walk with me again soon!

Appreciate the assist, Cheese! You’re my Trusty Photog PAL!