In the 1960s Rouse turned his focus to planned communities. After engaging in a planning exercise for the Pocatinco Hills estate of the Rockefellers, Rouse constructed his first planned residential development: the Village of Cross Keys in Baltimore. On June 16, 1961, Rouse bought inside the city from the Baltimore Country Club for $25,000 an acre. Rouse excitedly proclaimed that this undertaking “will be the largest, and potentially most important development in the history of Baltimore.” Rouse hoped that he could bring to the residential field “some of the fresh thinking, good taste and high standards which we believe have marked our shopping center developments.”