Harmony Speaks: A Conversation with Dolly Zack, Community Manager

Scores of families call Santa Nella RV and Mobile Home Parks home. Fresno native Dolly Zack has managed the parks since 2013 and has worked for Harmony’s founder, Matthew Davies, since he started the company in 2007. 

Built in the late 1950s and dedicated by President Kennedy in 1961, Dolly explains, the parks were originally built for construction workers stationed in Santa Nella for projects. In the 1980s, though, the parks expanded to accommodate increasing demands for space – and now, more than 300 people collectively reside in the two parks.  

The Santa Nella RV park offers about 50 spaces for a variety of travelers treading the path to Monterrey on I-5. While some simply pass through, others stay for weeks, months, or even years. In fact, one resident lives in the park permanently.  

“The spots are pretty much always full!” Dolly says. “Some people are just stationed here for work. Others have parents buried in the Santa Nella Veteran’s Cemetery and want to be close to them.” Others, she says, are “snowbirds,” retirees who travel between North and South as the seasons change.  

Dolly explains that over time, she has really gotten to know some of the more long-term park residents. “There are a lot of nice and interesting people who come in, and you really start to become their family,” she says. In fact, for Dolly, some residents have quite literally become her family. “A lady came through and I recognized her last name. We got to talking, and we eventually figured out that my husband’s great grandfather and her great grandfather were brothers!” Another time, one of her distant cousins came through the park and they met for the very first time. “You never know who you’re going to meet here,” she laughs. 

Dolly takes great pride in making the park not only a comfortable place for travelers to rest but also a model of sustainability. “We have two entire rows of spots that are powered by solar panels,” she explains.  

But while the RV park is a temporary post for many, the adjacent mobile home park is a permanent home to even more, housing some residents for as many as 20 or even 30 years. Harmony owns 50 of the nearly 300 total spots in the park. Of the 50 Harmony-owned spots, some are owner-occupied while others are rented. Harmony itself has refurbished and sold many of the homes. 

“Our mobile homes are like houses,” Dolly says, “not trailers. The newer ones have sheetrock on the walls to make them sturdy. They are very nice!”  

Dolly knows this from experience as she lives in the park herself. When she was hired as Community Manager in 2013, Harmony provided her with a triple-wide mobile home with an office space attached. Living and working in the same space makes her job a 24/7 one, but Dolly says she wouldn’t have it any other way. Her work keeps her busy, from managing the property – including weed-pulling, maintaining flower beds, and mowing – to fielding maintenance requests, but she says that because the residents take such good care of their homes, few maintenance-related problems arise. “It makes my job much easier!” she says.  

In order to maintain these standards, though, vetting and welcoming new park residents is a complex process. When she interviews prospective tenants, she likes to meet the entire family. Harmony also runs a required credit check and asks all interested residents to complete a standard application. The result is a cohesive, kind, and supportive community. “There are really great people who live here,” she says. “Everyone gets along. There’s no drama. And when it’s nice outside, people hang out together in their yards and chat. It’s great to see.” 

Even when she isn’t working, Dolly says the residents still take care of her. Recently, a resident treated her to tickets to a local fair at Los Banos, an adjacent town. “It’s such a good place,” she says. “The people here are very nice and I’m so happy to be here with them.”  

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At Harmony Communities, we feel strongly that each resident has a sense of home. That they come home from work and feel pride in their environment and in their place in the greater community. That families are comfortable raising children in our neighborhoods, and that couples and singles know that they belong to something bigger than their four walls. In other words, we seek to create harmony within each community, making our communities not just passable, but peaceful, safe, functional, and beautiful.