Giverny was established as a subdivision in 1987. The first homes to be built broke ground in 1987, and the majority of the remaining lots were built on between 1988 and 1990. The homes built in Giverny were built by multiple custom home builders. The last empty lot within the boundaries of Giverny sold in 2015, and the home finished building in mid-2016. An amendment to the CC&Rs allowed a subdivision of the lot located at 5401 Colony Road, and there is currently construction underway by Philip Thomas Builders, of four new waterfront homes on the 3+ acre lot.
Giverny was named after Giverny, France, where nearly one hundred years before, beginning around 1887, a number of American Impressionist artists settled to work in the Giverny Colony. The artists were drawn by the landscapes, the overall atmosphere, and the presence of Monet. These included Willard Metcalf, Louis Ritter, Theodore Wendel, and John Leslie Breck. Soon many American extended their visits from summer through the entire year. American painter Theodore Earl Butler married Monet's stepdaughter and sometime-model Suzanne Hoschedé there in 1892.
Frederick Carl Frieseke spent every summer from 1906 through 1919 in a residence next door to Monet's. The term Decorative Impressionism was coined in 1911 to describe Frieseke's work, and the term describes the work of a "second wave" of American painters in Giverny such as Richard E. Miller. In December 1910, six of the Giverny artists (Frieseke, Miller, Lawton S. Parker, Guy Rose, Edmund Greacen and Karl Anderson) were given a show at the Madison Gallery in New York which termed them "The Giverny Group. "World War I largely marked the end of the art colony.
