11
eZKTHE WASHINGTON POST.
SATURDAy, MARCH 14, 2020want to keep to themselves. This
community thrives on its social life.
“You’re making a choice to live in
close proximity of folks, which
means you have to be able to get
along with folks,” said Marty
McGuinness, president of the Belle
Haven Citizens Association.
Nearly every event, whether sad
or celebratory, t urns into a reason to
socialize.
When McGuinness’s miniature
Australian shepherd went missing,
neighbors went into action. Search
parties scoured the streets for Sssst,
pronounced “Forest” but spelled
with four S’s and a T. Children pa-
trolled the neighborhood on bikes.
“They said they never saw him
move so fast,” s aid McGuinness, who
was out of town at t he time. “Nobody
could ever get him. But then some-
one had enough sense to open our
front door.”
Even after Sssst was safely re-
turned home, neighbors lingered in
driveways. “Everyone comes togeth-
er and looks out for each other,” said
McGuinness. “A nd then, of course, it
turned i nto a social thing, too.”
The citizens association puts on
several events, including an annual
dinner, a Fourth of July parade and
an Easter egg roll. It greets new
residents with a bottle of wine, a
neighborhood directory and a cook-
book containing residents’ family
recipes.The Women’s Club started in
1936, when many women stayed at
home. But the club, like the women
who run it, has persisted through
changing times and shifting norms.
“When I first moved there, I was
one of the few women who worked
full time,” said Catherine Foltz, a
former resident and real estate
agent with Long & Foster. “It’s
changed over time because more
and more of the women work these
days.”
The club has evolved to focus on
community outreach and cultural
events and recently added a section
for younger women. But even the
garden club, which includes four
master gardeners, is not entirely
about gardening.
“It’s a way of sharing our lives
together,” s aid Silverman.
Living there: Belle Haven is
bounded by Richmond Highway to
the northwest, Fort Hunt Road to
the east, Windsor Road to the south,
and Quander Road to the west.
Many residents spend their en-
tire lives in Belle Haven. There are
30 of them here, including McGuin-
ness. Now, his children are continu-
ing such neighborhood traditions as
ice skating at M ount Vernon RECen-
ter and riding bikes through Fort
Willard Circle, an old Union Army
fort at t he center of the community.
“It’s the kind of place you want to
return to,” s aid Foltz.The average price of homes sold
in 2019 was $1.1 million. The median
was $1.2 million. There are four ac-
tive listings on the market, ranging
from a four-bedroom, three-bath-
room rambler listed at $ 879,000 to a
newly renovated six-bedroom, six-
bathroom Colonial listed at $2.4
million.
“People will move into the com-
munity and move up,” said Foltz.
“That’s been the history of Belle Ha-
ven for years.”
But mentioning money here is
met with palpable unease. “Because
it’s a wealthy neighborhood, it’s e asy
to fall into the trap of thinking that
people here are snooty. B ut honestly,
you know, there’s a lways snooty peo-
ple everywhere,” said Silverman.
“People here try to connect. And I
think it would be hard for you not to
find someone to connect with.”
Schools: Belle View Elementary,
Sandburg Middle and West Poto-
mac High.
Transit: Belle Haven is a mile and
a half from the Huntington Metro
station on the Yellow Line. The Fair-
fax Connector, Metrobus and Rich-
mond Highway Express also serve
the community.
[email protected]Where We Live Belle Haven
BY JESSICA WOLFROMA short drive south of Old To wn
Alexandria, Belle Haven is a subur-
ban escape for senators, military
families and the Washington re-
gion’s w ell-heeled.
The homes here have been
splashed across the pages of The
Washington Post Magazine and fea-
tured on NBC’s “The West Wing.”
Now known as the “West Wing”
house, a Belle Haven Colonial was
character Andrea Wyatt’s dream
house in Season 4.
But before Belle Haven was a
picturesque neighborhood, it was a
plantation with slaves. The land-
owners, Maj. John West and John
Colville, capitalized on the area’s
proximity to the Potomac River,
which made it an ideal port for to-
bacco exports.
“The West family, like other large
planters of the day, took advantage
of the legal form of slave labor and
expanded slaveholdings to over 30
slaves by 1776 with roughly 10 to 15
serving West G rove Plantation,” s aid
Jim Bish, a retired educator and
historian.
The West G rove plantation house
was burned down during the Civil
War, and the land remained unde-
veloped until David Janney Howell,
a civil engineer, began construction
on the Belle Haven Country Club
and golf course in the 1920s.
According to the Belle Haven
Country Club’s website, the name
Belle H aven comes from the Scottish
pioneers who settled along the Poto-
mac River in the early 1700s and
named their settlement after their
favorite c ountryman, the Earl of Bel-
haven. The first house was built in
1924 and, like the country club, still
stands in the neighborhood.
To day, this suburban enclave of
around 400 homes — a mix of ram-
blers, Cape Cods and Colonials —
hugs a hillside overlooking the river.
“What’s always struck me is the
almost San Francisco-type streets in
terms o f the steepness of some of the
hills,” said Dan Storck (D-Mount
Vernon), a member of the Fairfax
County Board of Supervisors.
But another defining characteris-
tic is the community itself. Belle
Haven isn’t a place for folks who
A place
where you
want to join
the club
An old and well-heeled
Fairfax enclave is
known for its socializingPHotos BY CRAIg HuDson foR tHe WAsHIngton Post
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Matt Bowman, left, golfs with his friend Charles Brittingham at Belle Haven Country Club; houses along
Woodmont Road; Caroline Hutcheson pushes Sadie Meerstein, 20 months, while in town visiting friends Katie and Ryan Meerstein.But the Women’s C lub, which has
more than 250 members, is the axis
upon which much of Belle Haven’s
social l ife revolves.
“That’s not to say that the men
don’t come and bartend and be a
part of our parties,” s aid Eleni Silver-
man, president of the Belle Haven
Garden Club, a subset of the Wom-
en’s Club, “but it is really women
who are driving this.”EISENHOWER
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Source: Maps4News/HERE
MEGHAN KELLY FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
to see more photos of Belle Ha-
ven, go to washingtonpost.com/real-
estate.