By Rita O’Brien

I moved to Arlington in 1952 with my sister and parents from Bedminster, New Jersey. While it was a good opportunity for my father’s career, it must have been a bit of a shock for my mother leaving behind a big house with 88 acres that had been General Knox’ headquarters during the Revolution for a two-bedroom apartment in Lee Gardens (now Woodbury Park). My sister and I, however, despite trading fields, a barn and a hayloft for playgrounds, friends, and even storm sewers, found it great fun and loved it from Day 1. Our brother was born in 1953, and my sister and I, at the ages of 9 and 10 were allowed to take him in his stroller to Lee Shopping Center on Pershing Drive at Route 50 to pick up groceries for my mother at Lee Market. My father would stop at Lee Bakery for doughnuts after church on Sundays – and birthday cakes and other celebrations always consisted of baked goods from Lee Bakery. Years later, they catered my wedding. 

We moved to Lyon Park in 1954, which as I remember looked pretty much the same as it does now, with the exception that houses were not being torn down to be replaced. Neighborhoods were tree-lined with sidewalks to ride bikes and skate. There were some businesses in Lyon Park at Pershing Drive and Washington Boulevard – a restaurant that we always called “Eat” due to the sign outside (it’s now Texas Jack’s – and a favorite of ours). I remember my grandfather and uncle coming to visit and telling my mother they’d take my sister and me for an outing. They gave us money for ice cream, but it turned out we spent the whole time waiting for them in the car while they went into “Eat” for beer!

We loved Lyon Park, with its proximity to the shops: in Clarendon – JC Penney’s, Murphy’s, Sears, shoe stores, etc.; Virginia Square shopping center with Kann’s Department Store, where I worked while I was in college, as well as the bus line down Wilson Boulevard where we would catch the bus to go into Washington to shop. Rosslyn, as many people will remember, was mostly pawn shops. My only recollection of Rosslyn as a child is the streetcar, which we would take to meet my father downtown at his office for dinner. Parkington (now Ballston), I remember for more shopping – I worked at McCrory’s while in high school, and of course, Hecht’s, with its huge wall of glass with messages – and probably ads.

I went to St. Charles from second through eighth grade, then to Bishop O’Connell for high school. Schools (at least mine) were racially segregated during the 1950s. I remember our first black classmate in 5th grade. Sister Marion explained ahead of time that this young lady was joining us, and we were expected to treat her with respect. I remember friendship with her was something to which we all aspired. Back in the 1950s during the Cold War, we would have air raid drills fairly often, where we would have to crouch down under our desks with our hands behind our necks. Looking back, I wonder why educators put us through that trauma (and it was, and to some extent remains) as I sincerely doubt that exercise would prevent harm in the case of a nuclear attack.

We rented in Lyon Park, moving to our 4-bedroom house in Ashton Heights in 1960, and I believe my parents paid about $17,000; they sold it around 1970 for about $26,000. My husband and I purchased our first house nearer to Falls Church in 1967 – a 3-bedroom, 1-1/2 bath – for $28,000, and my father was shocked that we paid so much!

We lacked a lot of what kids these days have. Most moms – not all – stayed home; as a rule, families had one car and one television. We did not have structured activities but were free to roam and to play what and with whom we wanted. It was an amazing place to grow up – and for that matter, it’s an amazing place to grow old!

By Natalie Roy (Bicycling Realty Group | KW Metro Center) and John Eric (Compass Real Estate) 

Lyon Park is one of DC’s most desirable areas, as it provides the best of urban/suburban living with its easy access to stores, shops, and restaurants. Not to mention that the commute to many jobs is very easy. Numerous corporations have chosen Arlington to host their corporate headquarters, which will only continue to drive up the desirability of our neighborhood.

Pricing in Lyon Park generally sits on the higher side, and our current market inventory is still bearing that out. Limited inventory always means high prices. The COVID era created a hyperactive sellers-market, with much more demand than inventory. Remote-working professionals wanting to improve their living situation, historically low interest rates and low inventory set the market on fire. For competitively priced homes, multiple offers, waived contingencies, and escalations over list price were the norm. Offers made sight unseen and contracts done in one day were not unusual. Home prices skyrocketed, increasing 20%-30% in just over two years. 

However, we are seeing an easing in the market due to inflation concerns as well as the rise in interest rates. While there is still competition, home inspections and financing contingencies have returned, and if a home is not competitively priced or presented well, it will sit longer on the market. Buyers are becoming pickier because of the cost of the home (price + interest).

Housing inventory continues to be a challenge. In June, active listings in Arlington were down again by 20% from the same time last year. With a decrease in supply, one would expect to see an increase in average prices, and in fact the average sales price in June was up a slight 2% in the past year. Unit sales were down by 21%, pushing Months of Supply up to a moderate 1.5 (this means it would take about 1.5 months for all available inventory in our market to sell). The average days a house sits on the market experienced no change, continuing to hover around three weeks. 

At the end of the day, unless you are an investor, you should worry less about resale value and more about what kind of home you will enjoy living in. If the past is any indicator, this region is very resilient. It has been able to weather many economic downturns and should be able to do so in the future.

By Elizabeth Sheehy

Lyon Park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, #03000437? In 2003, a group of dedicated neighbors put together a successful nomination to create the Lyon Park Historic District through the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Our community met National Register criterion A (an event, series of events or activities, or patterns of an area’s development) and Criterion C (A building form, architectural style, engineering technique, or artistic value, based on a stage of physical development, or the use of a material or method of construction that shaped the historic identity of an area). Criterion B, for those who are curious, requires association with an important person, so please let us know if any previous presidents have slept in your home!

Lyon Park is an example of the enormous growth that occurred in and around Washington DC, following the first World War. Architectural styles in the neighborhood reflect community planning and development, with a proliferation of Craftsman Bungalows, American Four Squares, Colonial Revivals, and especially pre-fabricated kit homes (Sears Bungalows) which were perfect for Lyon Park’s modest lots. Even the garden apartments were important contributors, meeting the needs of young professionals flooding to the nation’s capital.

At the time of the review of Lyon Park’s nomination, there were 1,165 structures that positively contributed to our Historic District approval and 329 non-contributing structures. The Lyon Park Community House, built by and for the community in the mid 1920s, was a critical contributing structure. During the 2015 renovation, great care was taken to meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties. That is why, for example, the framing of the added kitchen and restrooms spaces are smaller than the original building, making it visually clear which part of the building is dominant (original). That is also why the roof material of the sunroom is different from the original part of the building, to better show that it is a later addition to the main hall.

If you’d like to learn more, you can read the Lyon Park nomination form. You can also read the official report at the following link: DHR – Virginia Department of Historic Resources » 000-7820 Lyon Park Historic District. As you walk through the neighborhood, see if you can spot some of the contributing structures in Lyon Park, representing American architectural styles 1891-1953!

Mary Lou Dodge is a fun‐loving 91‐year‐old who lives in the same Lyon Park home that her family built in 1933 when she was three years old. We first met last year when I stopped to admire the stately oaks in her yard. Thus began a friendship between us that provided a window into Lyon Park’s history.

Mary Lou’s parents purchased their lot from an African American woman who owned several acres in Lyon Park. At that time, N. Fenwick Street had only four homes (there are now 17). The street extended only as far south as the current location of Long Branch Elementary School. Once the pavement ended, a path led south to a dirt road bordered by tall grasses, now known as Highway 50. Mary Lou remembers seeing horses from Fort Myer ride down this road, which ended at Seven Corners, the site of a Christmas tree farm.

On Sunday mornings, her family would occasionally drive west on the dirt road, then absent of houses or cars, to have break‐ fast by one of the many creeks that now flow under the high‐ way. They would make a fire, over which her mother would fry eggs and bacon on a skillet. During one of these outings, they met soldiers on horseback from Fort Myer. One of them gave her brother a horse ride, which he remembered for the rest of his life. For her part, some of Mary Lou’s fondest childhood memories are of her father reading to her and her siblings before bed. He loved Charles Dickens and would read them A Christmas Carol and Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson.

Mary Lou’s father worked as a private secretary for a retired col‐ onel. During the week, he would walk to N. Pershing Drive to catch a bus to his office downtown at 17th and K Streets NW. With no sidewalks in Lyon Park in those days and few vehicles, he would walk right down the middle of N. Fillmore Street.

In Lyon Park, the countryside didn’t feel far away. A pasture with a barn and cows nestled in the block enclosed by Highway 50, N. Highland Street, and N. Irving Street, across from the current Thomas Jefferson Community Center. Several of Mary Lou’s neighbors kept chickens. A family lived in a rundown house where the elementary school now stands and Mary Lou’s parents would not allow her to wander to the area that is now the corner of N. Fillmore Street and Arlington Boulevard, as vagrants and drunks tended to gather there. A small, shallow und) flowed through Lyon Park along the route of the pedestrian pathway in Fillmore Park.

The neighborhood was much quieter than it is now, though she remembers hearing the rumble of her family’s 1933 Chevrolet before seeing the car come into view over the hill on N. Fillmore Street. She and her uncle’s family, who also lived in the neigh‐ borhood, both had “victory gardens,” or vegetable gardens used to supplement food rations during World War II. Coffee was always in short supply during the war and when people heard that the grocery store (or “sanitary store”) had coffee in stock, they would rush there to buy it.

During gasoline rationing, the Dodge family would maximize their gas mileage for summer vacations by sailing on the Norfolk Steamer ship from DC with their car on board to Seashore State Park (now First Landing State Park) in Norfolk. Mary Lou vividly recollects a vast lineup of warships positioned nose‐to‐tail along the mouth of the bay to protect against German submarines. At the time, Virginia Beach was off‐limits to bathers due to debris from sunken ships that had washed up on shore.

When Mary Lou was in the seventh grade, she would spend time after school with a friend who lived in the apartments that are now Cambridge Courts Condominiums. Before the girl’s parents would return from work, they would make prank calls to stores that sold cans of Sir Walter Raleigh brand tobacco. She remembers warning the cashiers: “Do you sell Sir Walter Raleigh in a can? Well, you better let him out!”

The neighborhood’s main street was N. Pershing Drive and the busiest intersection (Pershing and Washington Boulevard) housed a drugstore, a grocery store, and a gas station, among other businesses. Her mother shopped there and also frequented a farmer’s market at 10th and E Streets SW, streets that no longer exist. That area is now L’Enfant Plaza, bordered by a tangle of highways. There was also a swimming pool near Hains Point; it closed one summer due to a polio epidemic.

Together with her two brothers, Mary Lou delivered the Evening Star newspaper to earn extra money. The paper was much thinner than today’s newspapers, almost the size of a pamphlet. She showed me exactly how she used to fold one page into another to make it easy to throw.

Mary Lou’s grandmother would come from Tennessee to live with them for part of the year. She would listen to radio soap operas, gushing with love stories and drama, which Mary Lou’s mother prohibited her from hearing. Nevertheless, she found a way to enjoy the sappy, tearful dialogues of the radio program “Stella Dallas.” She would sit on the front step outside the door, which afforded her a place to listen out of her mother’s sight.

All of Mary Lou’s girlfriends married directly after graduating from high school and did not attend college. Mary Lou, how‐ ever, earned a degree in chemistry at the University of Mary Washington. The income from her paper route covered half of the tuition of her first year in college. Once she started her career as a chemist in Richmond, she would regularly take the
train home, a journey that cost $5.00.