Introduction To prepare for the construction of a four-dwelling subdivision, “The Gateway at Spring Lake,” re-developers in February 2025 tore down the structures on a parcel where Old Courthouse and Beulah roads converge. The parcel is distinctive because from the 1950s to the 1990s, a greenhouse sat on the property…. Continue reading
While recently doing some research on Glyndon Park in northeast Vienna, I came across several deeds for adjoining parcels that were covered by racial covenants when the parcels were established in the 1940s (Fairfax County deeds A15:99, X14:409, Y14:196, 496:450, 514:84). The parcels are on Ayr Hill Avenue NE and… Continue reading
Introduction At Thanksgiving 2024, the Town of Vienna posted a photo of a gathering of the Kenyon family from the early 1920s (see below). Here, I am posting some educated guesswork on who in particular is in the photo and where it was taken. (I defer to Kenyon descendants, however,… Continue reading
300 Block of Beulah Road 400 Block of Creek Crossing Road (at intersection with Beulah) 500 Block of Beulah Road 600 Block of Beulah Road 1900 Block of Beulah Road 1800 Block of Beulah Road 1700 Block of Beulah Road 1600 Block of Beulah Road 1600 Block of Trap Road
September 2024 This post provides a short history of the house at 128 Nutley Street NW, long the site of a popular annual Christmas display in the Town of Vienna. According to a FFXnow report from August, the owners of the house approached a developer about rezoning and redeveloping the property, and the developer… Continue reading
Summer, 2024 A house from the 1920s on the 9000 block of Old Courthouse Road may not be long for this world. It recently sold to an LLC under a real estate listing that touted the lot as suitable for a much larger structure. The house is on a ¾-acre… Continue reading
352 Glyndon St. NE. (Reminder: the new house and its lot are private property). Final Days for the Old House, April 2024 Cleared: the Old House, mid-May 2024…. …And Then the Trees, Late May Construction Begins, July 2024 New House Is Well-Along, September 2024 The Old & New Houses, Viewed… Continue reading
Before & After: 300 John Marshall NE The original house was built between 1962 and 1963 by local developer John Bobby, judging from aerial photos and property records. The house was among the last two built of the original 57 houses in the Ayr Hill Heights subdivision, judging from aerial… Continue reading
Decades before there was a Wolftrap Elementary School, Clarke’s School House serviced the same general area outside Vienna, Virginia that Wolftrap now serves. Clarke’s School House, aka the Clarke School, was a Fairfax County public school that sat on the south side of Clarks Crossing Road less than a mile… Continue reading
Some 200 years ago, a sawmill sat in what is now Northside Park in Vienna. I haven’t seen this sawmill referred to in various accounts of mills in Fairfax County and the Vienna area, and I don’t know when exactly the mill operated. But the existing evidence–even though there are… Continue reading