preservation

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Driving over the Roosevelt Bridge on I-66 (Flickr pool photo by Brian Allen)

Fire Victim Identified — The victim of Thursday’s fatal house fire on S. Randolph Street has been identified. Family and friends said 73-year-old Dennis Lee was a retired contractor, a longtime Dallas Cowboys fan and a member of the local American Legion post. He died from smoke inhalation. In the wake of his death, firefighters plan to canvass Lee’s neighborhood to test and distribute smoke detectors. [NBC Washington – Warning: Auto-play video]

Preserving H-B’s Walls — The walls of the H-B Woodlawn secondary program are covered with more than 2,000 inscriptions from past graduating classes. School officials are considering ways to digitally preserve the painted walls when the program moves to Rosslyn in five years. [Falls Church News-Press]

Historic Designation for Wilson School? — Despite opposition from school officials, the county’s Historic Affairs and Landmark Review Board voted unanimously on Wednesday to recommend a local historic district designation for the Wilson School in Rosslyn. The Wilson School is the second-oldest school in Arlington and preservationists are trying to save it from being razed to make way for a larger building that will house the H-B Woodlawn program. [InsideNova]

Alexandria Has School Issues, Too — Like Arlington, neighboring Alexandria is also facing a school budget deficit and rising enrollment. Another issue facing Alexandria: competing with Arlington for teachers. Arlington’s average teacher salary is $76,892, compared to $73,612 in Alexandria. [Alexandria Times]

Arlington Named Top ‘Intelligent Community’ — For the third time, Arlington has been named one of the Top 7 Intelligent Communities in the world. “It is gratifying to have the Intelligent Community Forum recognize Arlington’s commitment to economic sustainability,” County Board Chair Mary Hynes said, in a statement. [Arlington Economic Development]

Destroyed N.J. Apartment Has Arlington Connection — The New Jersey apartment complex that burned to the ground, leaving hundreds homeless, is owned by Arlington-based AvalonBay Communities. The $80 million apartment complex was made from wood construction, which caused it to burn too quickly for firefighters to get it under control. [Bloomberg]

Flickr pool photo by Brian Allen

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Clouds over Rosslyn after Thursday's rain storm

APS Ranked in Top 100 — Arlington Public Schools has ranked No. 38 on a list of the top 100 school districts in America, published by the education website Niche. [WJLA]

Howze Won Pike Precincts — There was a bright spot for Democrat Alan Howze, who lost to incumbent John Vihstadt in a historic County Board election on Tuesday. Howze narrowly beat Vihstadt in the voting precincts along Columbia Pike. Howze supported the building of the Columbia Pike streetcar while Vihstadt vehemently opposes it. [InsideNova]

Preservation Arlington Opposes School Plans — The group Preservation Arlington wants its supporters to speak out against plans to build a new school on the Wilson School site in Rosslyn and to make changes to the Stratford School that would compromise its “historic integrity.”

Ebola Training for ACFD — Arlington County Fire Department command officers are training for another Ebola-related hazmat response. [Twitter]

No Tysons Wegman’s — A deal to bring a Wegman’s grocery store to Tysons Corner has fallen through. That will likely be disappointing to the many Arlingtonians who have been longing for a Wegman’s location closer than Fairfax or Woodbridge. Arlington isn’t the only D.C. suburb hoping for a Wegman’s, however. Reston residents have been calling for one, though the chain’s general requirement of a 80,000-150,000 square foot store with plenty of surface parking reportedly makes a Reston location unlikely. [Washington Post]

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

A woman photographs Dark Star Park in Rosslyn (Flickr pool photo by John Williams)

Howze Endorsed By Teachers PAC — Democratic County Board candidate Alan Howze has been endorsed by the Arlington Education Association’s political action committee. The teachers group said Howze “has clearly and consistently talked about the need to support our educators and address the overcrowding challenges we face.” [InsideNova]

Young Republicans: Don Beyer Is Old — The Arlington Falls Church Young Republicans used today’s “Throwback Thursday” as an opportunity to remind voters that Democratic congressional candidate Don Beyer was first elected to office as Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor in 1989. “Roxette’s ‘Listen to Your Heart’ was the number one song, Seinfeld premiered, a gallon of gas was $1.12, Taylor Swift was born, and the Soviet Union was still intact,” said Matthew Hurtt, AFCYR Chairman. “Don Beyer is campaigning on the same failed policies Michael Dukakis espoused in 1988.” [AFCYR]

‘Historic Home’ Is ‘A Labor of Love’ — Aurora Hills resident Patrick Johnson loves his “historic home,” a Sears catalog house built in 1931. Originally home to Arlington’s first paid fire marshal, the house is now “a labor of love and dedication” to maintain. [Preservation Arlington]

Pumpkin Decorating This Weekend — Families will be able to decorate pumpkins together this Saturday, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., at the Arlington Mill Community Center. [Patch]

Flickr pool photo by John Williams

North Arlington House Could Receive Historic Designation

By Ethan Rothstein
1/6

A house in the Waycroft-Woodlawn neighborhood in North Arlington will be considered for a historic designation by the County Board at its Saturday meeting.

The house, at 5151 14th Street N., just a few blocks south of Virginia Hospital Center, is a Queen Anne-style dwelling and was built, according to county staff, in 1881 and called Broadview. It was constructed by Robert Stinson Lacey, a Civil War veteran who “operated one of the County’s large market farms at and surrounding Broadview, and played an active role in local political and social affairs,” the staff report states.

Currently, the home and property is owned by Alex Deucher and Angela Guzman, who moved in about three years ago. Deucher contacted the county earlier this year to have a “local historic district” designation placed on the house, because the two “just wanted to see it protected.”

“This house is just so cool,” he said this afternoon while giving this reporter a tour of the exterior. “It’s got a lot of neat features that you don’t really see in newer houses. It’s got about 12-foot ceilings on the lower level, big parlors and a big porch. A lot of nights we sit out here and eat dinner.”

The house is painted yellow with blue trim, and many of the original features are still in existence and, according to Deucher, use.

“It represents the evolution of a simple I-house into an ornate Queen Anne-styled dwelling corresponding to the architectural trends of the late-19th century,” the staff report states. “[It] possesses integrity of design, materials, form, plan, and workmanship to convey its various periods of construction; and remains one of the best examples of Queen Anne-styled architecture in Arlington County.”

If the historic district status is approved, all renovations and major work on the house will have to be approved by the county. After Deucher called the county to apply for the status, he said the staff was able to pull the history of the house “all the way back to the land grant from King George.”

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

World War II-era aircraft flyover on Sunday (Flickr pool photo by Keith Hall)

Three Arlington Restaurants in ‘Dining Guide’ — Three Arlington restaurants are in Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema’s annual Fall Dining Guide. The eateries getting the honor: Green Pig Bistro, Thai Square and Water & Wall. [Washington Post]

Arlington Woman Wins Army Ten-Miler — An Arlington woman was the top female finisher in the 30th annual Army Ten-Miler on Sunday. Kerri Gallagher, 25, won the race with a time of 54:50. Two other Arlington women cracked the top 10: eighth place finisher Samantha Diehl, 26, and tenth place finisher Amy Laskowske, 27. [Stars and Stripes, Army Ten-Miler]

Rare Photo of Arlington House Slave — The National Park Service unveiled a rare photo of Selina Norris Gray, a slave at Robert E. Lee’s Arlington House, over the weekend. The photo was purchased on eBay by a Park Service volunteer, who recognized Gray in the photo. It was sold by a seller in England who had found a box of “unwanted” photos at a yard sale. [Washington Post, WJLA]

Home Sales Up, Prices Down — The average home sale price in Arlington slid 2.8 percent in September, compared to one year prior, but the volume of sales rose by about 10 percent. [InsideNova]

Demolitions in Historic Districts — Since the beginning of the year, applications have been filed to demolish at least 25 homes in historic districts in Arlington. “The looming demolition of these houses and buildings represents an incredible loss of history, architecture, time, energy and materials,” the group Preservation Arlington said in a blog post. As previously reported, home demolitions are on pace for a record pace this year. [Preservation Arlington]

Flickr pool photo by Keith Hall

Unitarian Universalist Church Named Historic Landmark

By Ethan Rothstein
1/6

Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington (4444 Arlington Blvd.) has been named to the Virginia Landmarks Register and could soon be named to the National Register of Historic Places.

The church was built in 1964 and designed by architect Charles Goodman, who also designed the original terminal at Reagan National Airport, according to Preservation Arlington. Several other Goodman-designed buildings, including the DCA terminal, have been named to the National Register.

“The building references traditional meeting halls and temple buildings in its form and has character-defining features of the Brutalist style in the Modern Movement,” the building’s registration form for the National Register reads. “Brutalist design sought to dramatize major building elements such as the frame, sheathing and mechanical systems. Known for an emphasis on bulky, heavy massing, Brutalist buildings often feature exterior walls made of unfinished concrete.”

Church additions were built in 1994 and 2013, but the main sanctuary and the plot of land’s site plan, designed by Goodman, have remained largely unchanged, the form states. The congregation wanted the building to “reflect their liberal, progressive beliefs and that would signify the UUCA’s leadership position within the denomination.”

Getting the church named a state landmark was a two-year process, Minister Linda Olson Peebles said. The church and its members were proud to see the architecture be recognized.

“[Congregants] told us they were impressed not only by the quality of the design of the building, but Charles Goodman spent a lot of time with the congregation and incorporating the values and theology of the congregation into the design of the building,” Olson Peebles said. “We’re hoping by it being put on the national registry, people will realize that the physical presence of a group in a community matters. It says something to the world.”

Hat tip to Preservation Arlington

Home Demolitions On Pace for Another Record Year

By Ethan Rothstein

A new house built at the corner of 18th Road N. and Lexington StreetArlington County has received applications for 122 demolition permits this year, which is on pace to set another record for the tear-down of homes.

Preservation Arlington notes that 115 of the 122 demolition permits applied for are for homes, 22 of which are located in National Register Historic Districts.

“The looming demolition of these houses and buildings represents an incredible loss of history, architecture, time, energy, and materials,” Preservation Arlington wrote in its mid-year report. “These buildings are often replaced with new construction that is out of scale and proportion to the community. Preservation Arlington urges citizens to adopt Local Historic District designations for their communities, with standards for design, height, and placement that could be customized to reflect community needs while still allowing reinvestment to occur.”

The number of demolition permits is well ahead of the record pace set in 2013, when 92 permits had been applied for in the same time period. Preservation Arlington said historic districts in Arlington are seeing one home targeted for demolition about every week.

Arlington County Planning Director Bob Duffy told ARLnow.com that the county is “watching the trend” of increased home demolition closely, but has no plans to recommend changing the Zoning Ordinance to stem the tide of house tear-downs.

“We’re watching it and tracking it as we always do,” Duffy said. “At this point, Arlington’s housing market is quite robust. The investment in our single family neighborhoods will continue and we’ll work with everyone to make sure our zoning regulations are in place.”

Duffy said there is no provision in the current zoning regulations to prevent multiple demolitions on the same block at the same time. He said the East Falls Church, Williamsburg and Cherrydale neighborhoods have seen the most demolition permits, and the vast majority of all the home tear-downs are north of the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.

W&OD Trestle Could Get Historic Designation

By Ethan Rothstein

Workers tear down part of The W&OD trestle in East Falls Church(Updated at 3:50 p.m.) The remaining section of the coal trestle from the old Washington & Old Dominion Railroad in East Falls Church could be given a historic district designation by Arlington County.

The trestle was partly on the property controlled by the NOVA Parks (formerly the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority), and partly on 6873 Lee Highway, a plot of land owned by Robert Shreve Fuel Company, which demolished its section of the trestle last week to make room for a storage facility.

The County Board is scheduled to vote on whether to advertise public hearings on the trestle’s historic designation this coming Tuesday.

The staff report for the agenda item reveals that county staff “learned of the demolition as it was taking place the morning of June 5,” but discovered that Shreve Fuel did not require permits to conduction the work.

The county’s Historic Affairs and Landmark Review Board (HALRB) determined that the trestle was suitable for historic designation because it met four criteria:

  • The property has character, interest, or value as part of the development, heritage, or cultural characteristics of the county, state, or nation;
  • The property has a distinctive location, or singular physical characteristics that make it an established or familiar visual feature;
  • The property is a particularly fine or unique example of a utilitarian structure representing a period or style in the commercial, industrial, or agricultural development of the county, with a high level of historic integrity or architectural significance; and
  • The property is suitable for preservation or restoration.

The demolition took place following a May 21, 2014 meeting in which the HALRB voted in favor of a historic designation for the trestle.

Shreve Fuel agreed to give NOVA Parks the segment of track from the old railroad that was on top of the trestle for future “interpretation.” According to NOVA Parks Executive Director Paul Gilbert, about 75 percent of the trestle still stands and is on NOVA Parks land.

“Benjamin Elliott’s Coal Trestle retains sufficient historic, cultural, and physical integrity to be designated as a local historic district by Arlington County,” the staff report states. “Benjamin Elliott’s Coal Trestle was built in 1926 in the East Falls Church neighborhood. The utilitarian structure reflects the former industrial and commercial landscape that existed in the neighborhood. Such small-scale commercial coal trestles were instrumental in the processing of coal for local delivery to residences and businesses. This coal trestle is a visual reminder of a critical early-20th century energy infrastructure that fueled the electrification and development of Arlington County and the region. There are no other coal trestles extant within the County.”

Part of W&OD Railroad Torn Down for Storage Facility

By Ethan Rothstein
1/6

One of the last remaining vestiges of the Washington & Old Dominion railroad that once ran where the W&OD Trail now sits was partially torn down yesterday to make room for a self-storage facility.

The piece, a concrete trestle with rail running on top of it, is along the W&OD Trail in East Falls Church just north of Lee Highway. According to Executive Director of NOVA Parks (formerly the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority) Paul Gilbert, 75 percent of the trestle sits on park-owned land and will remain standing, but the 25 percent that sits on the property of 6873 Lee Highway, owned by the Robert Shreve Fuel Company, has been demolished.

Shreve Fuel had tried to develop its property into a grocery store, according to Preservation Arlington’s Eric Dobson, which led the historic preservation group to place the trestle on its 2013 list of “Endangered Historic Places.” The plans for the store fell through, so Shreve Fuel is planning on building a by-right, five-story storage facility, according to Arlington County building records.

“We had been talking to the developer, sending letters, working as hard as we could to persuade the preservation of this area,” Gilbert told ARLnow.com today. “Just yesterday, about the time the trestle was coming down, I was talking with the developer, trying to see if there was any solution that could be found. We offered to buy that portion from them, we were looking for every solution we could to see if we could save it.”

The developer turned down NOVA Parks’ request, Gilbert said, because the plot of land “isn’t enormous” and every foot was needed for parking and other aspects of the storage facility.

The trestle was constructed in the 1920s to store coal and  railroad tracks were laid on top of it, Gilbert said; Shreve Fuel Company has owned the plot of land for “a very long time.” The railroad went out of business in 1968 and was converted into a trail, making the trestle and tracks one of the last pieces of rail anywhere along the 45-mile trail that runs from Shirlington to western Loudoun County. Dobson said it’s “allegedly” the only piece of rail left in Arlington County.

“The rail was an incredibly important part of the development of Arlington,” Dobson said. “It would be good to have more informational signs along the trail, and certainly there’s a lot of history with the rail.”

According to Arlington Historic Preservation Coordinator Cynthia Liccese-Torres, Shreve Fuel does not need a demolition permit to tear down the rail, and surveyors were dispatched to the site to paint lines along the trestle illustrating where the property line was (the spray-painted pink in the above photos, and the horizontal line in the diagram).

“Despite the demolition of Shreve’s section, the Park Authority remains very supportive of continuing to pursue the local historic designation of their portion of the siding, and so we will continue to work with them through the remainder of that process,” Liccese-Torres said in an email. “We are planning to bring a request to advertise forward to the County Board on June 17, with the Board’s review and action on the designation request expected in July.”

Gilbert said that Shreve Fuel has agreed to give NOVA parks the tracks itself, which will be moved to the park’s land and, eventually, turned into some sort of interpretive site.

“My guess is that it’s really only in the last 20 or 30 years that it’s been viewed as historic,” Gilbert said. “Before that it was just some concrete bins and leftover rails from the railroad. Today, it’s more meaningful because it tells a story about the history of the rail.

“We have a number of the train stations preserved along the trail, which tells the story about how it was a transportation route for people, but we don’t have very much that speaks to the industrial side of the train and what role it played,” he continued. “We will work on interpreting the site.”

Preservation Arlington Names ‘Most Endangered Historic Places’

By ARLnow.com
1/7

The group Preservation Arlington has released its annual list of “Arlington’s Most Endangered Historic Places.”

The list is intended “to heighten awareness of historic sites and resources in the county and to inspire advocacy on behalf of preservation within the Arlington community.”

“This year’s endangered list includes both individual historic buildings as well as building types, along with other important places such as graveyards and public parks,” Preservation Arlington said on its website.

The 2014 list, including excerpts from Preservation Arlington’s description of each:

  • Key Boulevard Apartments — “A nearly perfect example of Arlington’s garden apartment housing style… It is now threatened by a site plan amendment to demolish the building and redevelop the site.”
  • Arlington Presbyterian Church — “Designed by a prominent local architect… Redevelopment plans are moving forward and, if this building is demolished, a visual reminder of the past and the continuity of community that this landmark provides will disappear.
  • Parkland Open Space — “Both the Lubber Run Community Center and surrounding parkland, as well as the Potomac Overlook Regional Park, have been included in recent land grabs to develop and monetize the county’s rapidly decreasing open space and tree canopy… As we continue to further urbanize, parkland becomes an ever-more-valuable asset. It needs to be off-limits to redevelopment.”
  • Remnants of an Industrial-Commercial Hub in East Falls Church — “These buildings include the remaining W&OD siding, the Shreve Oil Co. building, and Cars USA, among others… The last few buildings of this area’s important role as a commercial hub in the 20th century are threatened by the redevelopment that is expected to occur with the arrival of the Silver Line transfer station at East Falls Church.”
  • Wilson School — “Designed by prominent Richmond architect Charles Morrison Robinson, the Wilson school survives as one of the oldest extant school buildings in Arlington County. While severely altered, it is the last remaining example of early 20th-century institutional architecture in the Rosslyn and Fort Myer Heights neighborhood.”
  • Mid-Century Arlington Architecture — “Although less understood and celebrated than other well-known design eras, mid-century modern architecture reflects a very pivotal time in our nation and in Arlington County. Arlington has numerous classic buildings of mid-century architecture that need to be preserved before it is too late.”
  • Family Graveyards — “As time passes and family members and descendants grow more distant from their buried ancestors, many of these graveyards are falling into a state of disrepair and neglect, and are threatened by encroaching development. Preservation Arlington encourages Arlington County to assist stewards of these family graveyards to investigate, document, and preserve these properties, before any more of these family histories are lost.”

The group’s 2013 list included National Register neighborhoods, the Arlington House woods, the 1879 Seneca quarry red sandstone cemetery boundary wall, the remnants of the Washington & Old Dominion Railway, low-rise commercial architecture of the 1930s-1950s, the Wilson School, the Blue Goose building and garden apartments.

Photos via Preservation Arlington

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Rosslyn skyline from the Roosevelt Bridge (Flickr pool photo by Brian Allen)

Reporter Embeds with Clarendon Bar Crawl — Reporter Dan Zak embedded himself with revelers participating in the Cinco de MEGA-Crawl over the weekend. He found plenty of loud, opinionated young people — one of whom compared Clarendon to Brooklyn — but he apparently did not find any public urination, vomiting or destruction of property worth noting. [Washington Post]

Parents Rip Board on Autism Program Cut — Parents of children with autism swarmed the Arlington School Board’s budget meeting, angry with a proposed $270,000 cut to a program that provides assistants for autistic students and their teachers. [InsideNova, Fox 5]

Bracket Room Facing Backlash? — A backlash seems to be forming against so-called “female-friendly” restaurants. Some women say the designation is insulting. One such restaurant mentioned in an article about the backlash: Clarendon’s the Bracket Room, which has billed itself as a female-friendly sports bar. [The Week]

Preservation Arlington Mourns 2013 Losses — The group Preservation Arlington is lamenting the loss of 179 single-family homes lost in Arlington in 2013. The group is also marking the loss or impending loss of the Blue Goose building; part of the Arlington House Woods and Arlington National Cemetery’s Seneca sandstone perimeter wall; and a number of garden apartment buildings. [Preservation Arlington]

Ft. Myer Road Closed — Cyclists who bike on Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall may be impacted by a road closure on the base. McNair Road is closed from Lee Avenue to Marshall Drive due to “road damage.” The closure is expected to be in place until Monday. [Facebook]

Flickr pool photo by Brian Allen

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