For years, if you lived in Williamsburg and wanted to ride out toward East Fork, the answer was the same. You parked at the end of Old Broadway, pedaled a few miles of the Hike/Bike Trail, hit a scenic overlook above Harsha Lake, then turned around because the pavement stopped mattering. The village was a trailhead, not a corridor.
That is no longer the geometry. The Village of Williamsburg has confirmed on its own recreation page that Phase III of the Williamsburg-to-Batavia Hike/Bike Trail is complete, connecting the existing route to Zagar Road in Batavia Township. It is a small announcement with a large downstream effect on how a summer Saturday here actually spends itself.
The Sentence Most Residents Missed
The village's recreation update reads like municipal housekeeping. Read closer. The trail, when fully finished, will run more than 13 miles between the two villages, largely built on abandoned roadways originally cut during the construction of East Fork State Park. Phase III's completion means the village-side segment now feeds directly into the main park road and, from there, out to Batavia Township.
The consequence for someone who already lives here is simple. Old Broadway is no longer a place you go for a workout that ends where it started. It is now the eastern gateway of a continuous ride through the north shore of William Harsha Lake, past the campground, into another village entirely. That reframes a Saturday morning.
What The Corridor Actually Looks Like
If you have not ridden it since the extension opened, here is the sequence in order, from the village trailhead outward:
- Old Broadway trailhead, at the south end of the village. The community lot at 285 W. Main and the Harmony Hill lot at 299 S. Third are the two designated park-and-ride options the village lists.
- Williamsburg-Bantam Road through the East Fork Wildlife Area, mixed-use with vehicles on the roadway sections.
- Kain Run Creek bridge, the point where the trail crosses off the road and into park interior.
- Scenic overlook along the edge of William Harsha Lake. This is the spot most casual riders used to treat as the turnaround.
- East Fork State Park campground, connecting onto the main campground road.
- Zagar Road in Batavia Township, the new terminus that Phase III finally reached.
Trail data on the ridden portion puts the primary segment at roughly 6.5 miles one way, with firm gravel giving way to softer dirt in places, and no water refill stations along the route. Pack two liters. That last detail sounds like a small thing until it is 2 p.m. and 88 degrees.
Main Street Between Rides
The other quiet effect of the extension is that Main Street stops being a lunch destination and starts being a hinge. Riders coming off the corridor at Old Broadway are two blocks from West Main. Anyone who has tried to sit down for a plate after a long summer ride knows the value of that walking distance.
Los Compadres at 268 W. Main is the sit-down default. The kitchen is open until 9:30 p.m. weeknights and 10 p.m. Fridays, which matters more than it should because a lot of Williamsburg's post-ride window falls into that gap between casual lunch and a real dinner. Main Street Pizza, family-owned for more than 25 years, is the other anchor, and it is built for the takeout crowd that wants to eat at the Community Park rather than a restaurant table.
Neither of these places is new. What is new is that they are now positioned inside the corridor rather than adjacent to it. Post-ride hunger is a specific kind of hunger, and having both a chimichanga and a slice within a block of the trailhead lot changes how far people will actually push their ride.
The Community Park Nobody Talks About Enough
The 35-acre Village Community Park at 150 East Main is one of those civic assets residents drive past without cataloging. It is worth cataloging.
A 4/10-mile paved walking loop, two reservable shelters, and a 24-hole, par-60 disc golf course on-site.
Disc golf is the sleeper here. Twenty-four holes is a serious course for a village park, and it is under 24-hour camera surveillance, which is a practical detail rather than a marketing one. Shelter reservations run $75 per day for village residents and $125 for non-residents, useful information if you have hosted a family reunion and paid a lot more elsewhere.
The walking loop is short. That is the point. It is the "before-dinner, before-the-mosquitoes" loop, not the workout loop. Residents who treat it that way get more use out of it than residents who dismiss it for being short.
The Bethel Detour That Closes The Weekend
Fifteen minutes south of the village, Harmony Hill Vineyards at 2534 Swings Corner Point Isabel Road in Bethel is not a Williamsburg business, but it functions as one on Saturday evenings. The winery sits on a 72-acre Nationally Certified Wildlife Refuge farm and includes the Cellar on the Hill, an underground wine cave that the winery states is one of only a handful of cut-and-cover structures of its kind in the country.
Two operating details worth carrying with you. First, the winery's regular season runs Memorial Day into fall, with tastings Friday 5 to 9 and Saturday 2 to 9, plus summer holiday hours. Second, Tate Township is dry, which means only Harmony Hill's own wines can be consumed on the property. Bringing a growler from somewhere else is not an option.
The winery changed hands in October 2024, when founders Bill and Patti Skvarla passed ownership to Randy and Marcy Gantt after 24 seasons. Live music on the Hill Center Stage has continued through the transition. For a Williamsburg resident already used to the drive, the practical shift is smaller than the ownership change might suggest.
An Honest Look At A Resident Week
If you already live here, the summer week rearranges itself around the corridor without much conscious planning. What that looks like in practice:
| Day | Where | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday evening | Community Park walking loop | Short, shaded, done before the light goes |
| Thursday | Main Street Pizza takeout at the park shelter | Kids at the disc golf course while dinner cools |
| Saturday morning | Old Broadway to Harsha overlook and back | Cool air, wildlife active, back by 10 |
| Saturday afternoon | Los Compadres late lunch | Restaurant is settled between shifts |
| Saturday evening | Harmony Hill, Hill Center Stage | Fifteen minutes down, music till 9 |
| Sunday | Full corridor to Zagar Road | The ride the extension finally makes possible |
None of that requires leaving the village's orbit. That is unusual for a Clermont County community this size, and it is more true now than it was two summers ago.
Two Things To Keep In Mind
The extension is a rideable route, not a rail-trail in the polished, striped, water-stationed sense. Bring the bike with wider tires. Ride early or ride late. Deer move quietly through the wooded sections and are not shy about the pavement.
The other thing worth keeping in mind is quieter. When a village becomes the entrance to a corridor rather than the end of one, the properties along that corridor start to be described differently. Homes near Old Broadway or within a short walk of the community lots on West Main are, in practical terms, trail-adjacent in a way that they were not before Phase III closed. It is not a market call. It is a description of what the map now shows.
If you own here and are curious what that shift means for how your property gets described the next time it changes hands, or if you are already thinking about the next move within the village or out to acreage, Ragan McKinney Real Estate knows this corridor and the homes along it. Let's Connect.
