Kentlands was among the first new traditional neighborhoods built in the United States since WWII.  In 1987, Town Founder Joe Alfandre hired Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk to prepare the master plan in a public design charrette.  Watkins showed up on the third day of the charrette, offered to help, and remained on site for the next 19 years until Kentlands and its sister community, Lakelands, were completed.  Watkins opened an office for DPZ on the site to oversee the design development of the community and serve as the Kentlands Town Architect.

Thirty years later, the 352-acre neighborhood is a thriving community of some 5,000 people.  It is seamlessly connected to Lakelands, another TND planned by DPZ while Watkins led their office in Kentlands.  Together, the two neighborhoods contain nearly 1 million square feet of retail space, including 65 live/work units, and a variety of residential types, among which are multi-family apartments and condominiums, stacked townhouse condos, townhouses, single-family detached houses as well as garage apartments.  The neighborhoods also include an elementary school, a middle school, a child-care center, two community clubhouses, a church, and a synagogue.

In 2007, Watkins left DPZ to pursue a master’s degree in classical design.  Simultaneously, he opened his own urban design and architecture firm.  Watkins continues to live and work in the Kentlands and enjoys a unique perspective on his own work as he watches over ten thousand people live, learn, work and play in Kentlands and Lakelands, communities that literally grew up around him.