A New Town Resident Profile

The following is an excerpt from the New Town Crier homeowners association newsletter. I get tons of inquiries asking what it’s like to live in Williamsburg. Hopefully, this story about New Town home owners Camille and Rob Di Maio give you a little insight.

New Town represents a lifestyle shift for many residents, but the move here from a “deeply suburban” home in San Antonio is a truly dramatic change for the family of Camille and Rob Di Maio. They had resolved to simplify their lives, and to have a home base that allows them the freedom to travel at will —- concepts embodied in their Village Walk residence. Camille says “there is a certain buoyancy in having less ‘stuff,’” and that their lives are larger for it.

The Di Maio family picked Williamsburg and New Town very deliberately as a place where they could help their four children (ages 8 – 18) capture what they had as youths in a smaller environment and a simpler time. They also wanted walkability, access to the ocean, access via train to D.C. and NYC, and a chance to fulfill their wanderlust. Travel is important to the family for many reasons, one being that it augments the home-school education that Camille provides, with the help of on line resources such as the Virtual Academy for advanced studies and Rosetta Stone for languages. The convenience of New Town also offers independence to the older children, who can pop into Trader Jones’s for milk or ride the trolley to a job at Aroma’s in the Colonial area. The open green space is a setting for the younger ones and their dad to engage in nerf ball battles nightly.

Camille Di Maio had always wanted to be an author, and now finds her way to the balconies of their home for creative time in the early morning. She writes historical fiction with “low heat” romance. Her stories grow generically from the seed idea, though of course she has to have a synopsis when she pitches a book to her publisher. She loves to keep things flexible enough to follow a tangent dictated by her research or by a need to flesh out a character. Amazon publishes Camille’s books, with sales for The Memory of Us already topping 100,000 copies.

Aside from the fun, family travel provides ideas and inspirations for Camille’s novels. She takes notes as they visit various places or hear stories about local characters. Her second and most recent publication, Before the Rain Falls, is set in Texas, partly in women’s prisons in the 1940’s and partly today. Her third, coming out soon and focused on the suffragette movement, revolves around New York City’s Penn Station. She is working on a fourth, which will take place in Coronado on the set of “Some Like It Hot.” Unlike the other novels, Camille’s first book, The Memory of Us, was inspired by song, not setting: the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” It takes place, though, in Liverpool, which she had researched on line and was able to visit only recently — happily finding that she had gotten it right.

Rob, via computer, continues to operate their real estate team in San Antonio, where they have had a joint business. This allows flexibility to travel, even for longer periods. They have to choose adventures that will appeal to all of the family, of course, though their eldest is off to King’s College in NYC this year. She already has a job there with Camille’s publicist. Rob’s family is international, and Camille grew up moving often, as she and her family followed her father’s career in TV sales from Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania. She and Rob met while working for a political entity in D.C., and they have continued the “nomadic” life with moves to VA, CA, and Texas. What good fortune for them and for us that they have chosen New Town as a place to put down roots that can spread both deep and wide.

Read more about the New Town community here!

Interested in buying a home in the New Town area? Check some homes for sale here. 

Read the full issue of the September 2017 New Town, ‘Town Crier’.

Pss’t I’m a real estate agent

This website is authored by local resident and REALTOR, John Womeldorf. John is known around town as Mr. Williamsburg, for both his extensive knowledge of the Williamsburg/ Richmond/ Hampton Roads area and his expertise helping buyers and sellers in the local real estate market.

If you are a home owner searching for someone innovative to sell your home I would love to share my thoughts on marketing. You can read some of the stories I have written about the homes I have sold here.

Additionally, I have helped hundreds of folks find their dream home/ community and would love to help you find yours in the Williamsburg, Yorktown, New Kent, VA Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Isle of Wight,  Poquoson and Richmond VA area.

 Want to tell your home’s story? Or find your dream home/ neighborhood in the area Contact John “Mr. Williamsburg” Womeldorf at (757) 254-8136 or [email protected]  and we’ll get you started.

To schedule a visit to see this home or others in the Williamsburg or Hampton Roads VA area call/text 757 254 8136 or email [email protected]

I look forward to serving your real estate needs!

Best,

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