The first homes being built on the old Febrey-Lothrop Estate could be ready for move-in early next year.
Developer Toll Brothers says its nine quick move-in homes at ‘The Grove at Dominion Hills’ are in progress and expected to come online in early 2024, according to the company’s D.C. Metro Division President Nimita Shah.
A model home has been open for tours since September, she said.
The first available models, per the website, are each 3-story, 5-bedroom homes priced at $1.9 million. They come with interior and exterior finishes picked out by designers.
There are 10 to-be-built home sites available, for which home buyers can choose their floor plan and personalize their finishes, says Shah.
Potential homebuyers can also take a “hard hat tour” of a home next Sunday from 1-3 p.m, according to the website.
The aging but notable Febrey-Lothrop house on the 9-plus-acre estate, at the corner of Wilson Blvd and N. McKinley Road, was demolished to make way for news housing after local preservationists, including the Arlington Historical Society, were unable to find a way to stop the project in time.
Attempts to get the county to purchase the site, parts of which date back at least to the Civil War, or to give it a local historic designation, failed.
The history of the site lives on in the names of some of the home design names — dubbed “Randolph,” “Rouse” and “Woodward.”
Alvin Lothrop, one of the namesakes of the Febrey-Lothrop Estate, was a founder of the Woodward and Lothrop department stores chain in 1898. The estate’s last owner before Toll Brothers was a trust for the local sportsman Randy Rouse.
The history, however, will be preserved in part through markers the Dominion Hills Civic Association plans to put up.
“We are in the research and design phase, including seeking input from members of our community,” says civic association President Terri Schwartzbeck.
The civic association received a $6,600 grant from Arlington County to create and install them.
“This land represents a rich swath of Arlington’s history, and the signage will include information about the Powhatan people, the Civil War, and the 20th century,” the county press release said at the time. “These new markers will allow residents and visitors to share in this forgotten history.”
The community includes new streets, curbs, utilities and street trees, Shah noted. In a bid to improve stormwater retention and water filtration, Toll Brothers added permeable driveways and, for each home, rainwater collection tanks and planter boxes.