Ask anyone who moved to RounTrey in the past two years what surprised them most, and the reservoir usually comes up twice. Once for how good it looks from a kayak on a Tuesday evening. Once for how hard it was to actually get a kayak slot in the first place.
That contradiction is worth sitting with, because it explains something real about how this community runs. RounTrey rations the water. It practically begs the rest of Richmond to show up for the party.
The Reservoir Runs On A Waiting List, Not A Walk-Up
Swift Creek Reservoir sits at the center of the neighborhood's identity, and the HOA treats access to it accordingly. Kayak storage slots on the community dock are not first-come, first-served. They are filled through an annual lottery held every July, with residents watching the weekly HOA email and the neighborhood Facebook page for the exact window to enter. A floating kayak dock was installed in February 2023 to expand capacity, and the lottery still runs every summer, which tells you the demand for water access has outpaced the supply of slots even after that upgrade.
The reservoir itself supports bluegill, black crappie and largemouth bass, so the fishing pull is real and not just a marketing line. But getting onto the water with your own boat, rather than just admiring it from a bench, means entering a lottery like everyone else on your street.
The pools work on a similar logic of controlled access rather than open use. Caregivers who accompany a resident to the pool are billed as guests unless the household pays an annual caregiver fee of $150 per household, capped at two caregivers per account. Future residents under contract with a builder can get pool privileges before closing, for $200 a year, but those privileges evaporate immediately if the building contract falls through. Every visit still requires checking in with a lifeguard at the gate. None of this is unusual for an amenity-heavy HOA, but it is a tighter system than the phrase "resort-style pool" tends to suggest.
Two Clubhouses, One Tennis Court
RounTrey and NewMarket Estates operate two separate clubhouse and pool complexes, which sounds like double the capacity until you look at what each one actually offers.
| Main Clubhouse (Graythorne) | NewMarket Clubhouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | 3800 Graythorne Drive | NewMarket section |
| Attached amenities | Residents-only fitness center, the community's one tennis court | Fireplace lounge, bar service area, HD television |
| Capacity | Larger event space | Up to 93 people |
| Rental eligibility | Current residents only | Current residents only |
The tennis court sits behind the Graythorne pool and is the only one in a community spanning eight named sections. If you live in Bellstone or New Market Village, the court is a drive, not a walk. The gym follows the same pattern: it is attached to the main clubhouse, not distributed across the neighborhood, so proximity to Graythorne genuinely changes how convenient certain amenities are depending on which section you bought into.
Eight Sections, One Shared System
RounTrey is not a single subdivision so much as a federation of them, and the section names matter because they determine which playground and pool are actually a short walk from your front door rather than a short drive. The community is currently built out across:
- Wivenhall
- Spaldwick
- Barkham
- Graythorne
- Bellstone
- New Market
- New Market Estates
- New Market Village
Playgrounds exist in Barkham, Wivenhall and near the New Market clubhouse, but not in every section. Dog parks and paved walking trails run throughout the community and are the one amenity type that genuinely does not depend on which section you live in, which is likely why they come up so often as the low-friction, no-lottery-required version of RounTrey's outdoor life.
The Fall Festival Is Also A Model-Home Weekend
Here is where the neighborhood's personality flips entirely. The single biggest event on the RounTrey calendar, by the community's own description, is the Fall Festival held in conjunction with the Home Building Association of Richmond's Parade of Homes opening weekend. It runs from the main clubhouse, timed to the Oktoberfest season, with a petting zoo, food trucks, a beer truck, hot cider, inflatables and face painting.
The event, sometimes branded A Taste of RounTrey, is explicitly free and open to the public rather than restricted to residents. That is a notable departure from how the pool and clubhouses are gated. The reason becomes obvious once you notice the timing: the festival coincides with the Parade of Homes weekend, when show homes just down the block from the clubhouse are open for tours, and attendees can enter a raffle at each one to boost their odds of winning. RounTrey is still an active building community, with new sections like New Market Estates and New Market Village continuing to add homes, so the festival doubles as foot traffic for the builders currently selling there. Residents get a party. Builders get buyers walking through model homes. Both happen at the same clubhouse, on the same weekend.
The December counterpart, the Lights Fest, follows the same open, festive format at the clubhouse: family photos, a Santa appearance, and a trolley ride past the Lights Fest display, with attendees voting on their favorite entry. Earlier in the year, the RounTrey Run 4 Hope charity run opens with Old Hundred Elementary School's choir performing the national anthem before runners take off, a detail that signals how tightly the neighborhood's calendar is woven into the local elementary school rather than existing as a generic HOA fun run.
What's Actually Changing On The Roads Nearby
None of this happens in a vacuum. Chesterfield County is in the middle of the Woolridge Road widening project, which will take a 1.2-mile stretch between Genito and Lacoc roads from two lanes to four, adding a grass median, sidewalk and a shared-use path. Utility relocations began in May 2026, and construction on the roadway itself is expected to follow within the second half of this year. Woolridge, Genito and Watermill Parkway are set to stay open through most of the work, though the county has flagged the possibility of brief weekend closures announced 30 days in advance.
For a neighborhood built around Otterdale Road access to Route 288, that construction window matters more than a typical road project headline. It is worth checking the Chesterfield County project page periodically rather than assuming the timeline holds exactly as published, since these county infrastructure schedules tend to shift by a season or two in either direction.
Why The Split Actually Makes Sense
Put the two halves of RounTrey's calendar side by side and the logic holds together. The amenities that current residents use every week, the reservoir, the pools, the clubhouse rentals, are the ones the HOA protects most carefully, because they are finite and because overuse by non-residents would degrade the exact thing people paid HOA dues to access. The events that put RounTrey on Richmond's radar, the Fall Festival, A Taste of RounTrey, the December Lights Fest, are the ones thrown open to anyone willing to drive out, because the community still has homes to sell and a builder-sponsored open house works better with a crowd.
If you already live here, that split is probably worth remembering next July when the kayak lottery email lands in your inbox, and worth remembering again in the fall when your neighborhood's biggest party turns out to be someone else's open house too.
For homeowners in RounTrey weighing a move, or thinking about what a Fall Festival weekend crowd might mean for a listing timed alongside it, River City Elite Properties knows this community section by section, from the Graythorne tennis court to the New Market Village lots still being built. Schedule Your Listening Appointment when you're ready to talk through what your specific section and home are actually worth in today's market.
