Published June 22, 2025
Country Club Estates represented Volk-McLain Communities’ most ambitious and upscale residential project in San Ramon. Opened in February 1965 within the San Ramon Golf Club (then called the San Ramon Country Club), the housing tract featured large architect-designed homes positioned along winding streets beside the golf course — a significant departure from the more modest tract housing that had defined much of San Ramon Village during the early 1960s.
The homes were designed by architect Dave Johnson, AIA, and emphasized spacious floor plans, dramatic entryways, custom detailing, and a level of architectural variety uncommon in many suburban developments of the era.
Country Club Estates reflected a growing shift in East Bay suburban development toward luxury-oriented communities built around recreation, exclusivity, and landscaped environments — trends that would become increasingly common in later decades.
Mapping Country Club Estates
Country Club Estates was built on Firecrest Lane and Winged Foot Place.
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| Annotated aerial map of the Country Club Estates housing tract in the San Ramon Golf Club in San Ramon, California. Base imagery from Apple Maps. |
Country Club Estates homes and architectural style
When Volk-McLain introduced Country Club Estates in 1965, prospective buyers encountered the housing tract through its model homes. The models showcased the different designs, floor plans, and lifestyles the builder was offering to buyers in San Ramon.
The original Country Club Estates models
The original model homes provide a useful cross-section of Country Club Estates' architecture. Volk-McLain presented five models in a sales complex on Firecrest Lane, offering buyers a range of house sizes, floor plans, and architectural styles. Together, the models document the different designs Volk-McLain chose to put on display when the tract opened in 1965.
The Plan 1
This model offered approximately 2,482 square feet with 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.
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| Original Plan 1 model today via Google Street View. |
The Plan 2
This model offered approximately 2,118 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.
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| Original Plan 2 model today, with original Olive tree, via Google Street View. |
The Monticello Colonial
This model offered approximately 2,292 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.
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| November 1964 Oakland Tribune ad—artist's rendering of an elevation in Country Club Estates in San Ramon. |
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| Original Monticello Colonial model today via Google Street View. |
The Riviera
This model offered approximately 2,400 square feet with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Only one was built.
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| 1965 Contra Costa Times ad—The Riviera model featured a Venetian-styled design. |
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| Original Riviera model today via Google Street View. |
The Plan 5
This model offered approximately 1,729 square feet with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.
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| Original Plan 5 model today (expanded) via Google Street View. |
Marketing Country Club Estates
Country Club Estates was marketed as one of San Ramon’s most prestigious new housing tracts. At a time when the average American home measured roughly 1,400 square feet, many homes here exceeded 2,200 square feet and featured expansive lots, golf course surroundings, and upscale interior finishes.
Advertisements emphasized elegant architecture, mature landscaping, and country club living rather than affordability or efficiency. Real estate coverage in Bay Area newspapers frequently highlighted the tract’s model homes, decorative interiors, and carefully staged presentation.
Architectural styling varied between models, ranging from Colonial-inspired designs to Mediterranean-influenced elevations with arches, columns, and large garage facades. Mature olive trees and professionally landscaped streets further distinguished the tract from many newer housing developments elsewhere in the rapidly growing San Ramon Valley.
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| 1965 Oakland Tribune ad—the model home complex was landscaped with mature trees to give the area a well-established look. |
Legacy of Country Club Estates
Although Volk-McLain originally planned a much larger tract, with 60 homes in the first phase, only ten Country Club Estates homes were ultimately completed before the company began winding down its homebuilding operations in 1965. The remaining lots were later sold to other developers, including Alpha Homes, which continued development under the name Fairway Hills.
Country Club Estates was the last housing tract Volk-McLain began in San Ramon. It was a striking departure from the modest tract homes that had established the company's presence in the valley: a small collection of larger residences overlooking the golf course, aimed at a more affluent market. But the project was short-lived. Whether the homes proved too expensive, the market had shifted, or Volk-McLain simply saw greater opportunity elsewhere, the company soon abandoned residential construction in favor of industrial development.
The timing also appears to mark the end of Volk-McLain's homebuilding era more broadly. The company's earlier Carlton Hills development near San Diego had been another large-scale planned community, with golf-course neighborhoods among its component subdivisions. Newspaper advertising for Volk-McLain's San Diego homebuilding appears to disappear around the time the company began developing San Ramon Village, although a later 1968 retrospective indicates that construction continued at Carlton Hills into 1962. The surviving record therefore suggests a transition rather than a precise cutoff: as residential development in San Diego wound down, Volk-McLain was turning its attention to Northern California.
In that context, Country Club Estates feels like an unlikely bookend to the story. The company that had entered the San Ramon Valley promising thousands of affordable suburban homes ended its local homebuilding era with just ten houses overlooking a golf course. The remaining residential opportunities were left to other builders, while Volk-McLain found a more lasting business in industrial property.
Today, the original Country Club Estates homes remain among the most distinctive residences along the golf course — a reminder of the moment San Ramon's suburban growth began shifting from modest postwar tract housing toward more affluent residential development.
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- Fairway Hills: Alpha Homes' 1965 housing tract in San Ramon
- Sunny Glen: Volk-McLain's 1963 retirement community in San Ramon
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