Hilltop Manor was the only village of the three defense villages located in the Wichita area (Oaklawn and Planeview were the others) that had permanent housing defined by the Federal Public Housing Authority as "demountable houses...and for the most part, suitable for permanent residential use...(they are) units of standard construction" (source: Public Housing: The Work of the Federal Public Housing Authority, National Housing Agency. Federal Public Housing Authority, Washington, D.C., March 1946). The design of Wichita's defense housing was a "minimal house" so identified by the government and was, in its basic form, a square, four-room plus bath, with no basement dwelling unit.

Site plan of the proposed Hilltop Manor development that was featured in the Wichita Eagle on October 14, 1941.