Rose Hill Relishes Its American Beauty
By Ann Cameron Siegal
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, August 11, 2001
Standing 26 inches tall, weighing 80 pounds each and looking over the main thoroughfare in Fairfax County's Rose Hill community, they were bound to attract attention. "You can tell what the weather is going to be by how they're dressed," said a neighbor, referring to the four concrete geese flanking Twila Noble's front door.
"I can't believe people notice them," said Noble, flipping through a scrapbook highlighting mementos that have been left for the geese. New Year's gifts, Easter baskets and flowers have appeared on her doorstep, accompanied by notes saying, "Thanks for sharing," "They're the talk of the neighborhood," and even a note from a local pastor: "If you ever need spiritual counseling, feel free to honk for me."
Rose Hill has its share of big issues, including traffic, development and soil settlement, but residents notice individual efforts to create smiles.
Houses are identified by landscaping and traditions, rather than by owners' names. There's the "house with the great lighting display at Christmas," "the waterfall house" and "the hot dog house." The latter belongs to the Nichols family, which gives away 500 frankfurters in their front yard each Independence Day.
Linda Nichols, a resident for 27 years, started a drop-in family volleyball group six years ago that still draws 15 to 20 players every Thursday evening. "People are too busy to get to know each other," she said, explaining why she organized the activity.
The civic association fosters community pride by honoring well-landscaped yards with "A Rose Hill Beauty" signs. Honorees vary from those showing labor-intensive creativity to those who favor stark simplicity. One winner went for low maintenance and curb appeal by using fake flowers.
Last year's 30 awards rose to 90 this year. "The effort to stimulate a community-wide upgrade through friendly competition has been successful beyond our wildest imagination," said Carl Sell, the association president.
Once the site of an 18th century plantation, Rose Hill got its name from a manor house that was perched atop terraced grounds brimming with hundreds of rose bushes. Rose Hill's acreage has been home to apple orchards, horses and dairy cows.
During the winter of 1954, drawn by advertisements touting three-bedroom brick houses with corkstone floors and 9.5-cubic-foot refrigerators, families began flocking to what were then "out in the country" houses priced well under $16,000.
Residents say those early concrete slab ramblers and split-level houses "were built with a truckload of junk," referring to off-brand, odd-size materials used, which made getting replacement parts difficult.
Ruth Bernhardt, then president of the Jewish War Veterans Auxiliary, didn't have phone service for four months, so she would bundle up her toddler several times a day and walk blocks to an outdoor pay phone. The builder told Bernhardt that she shouldn't expect "a Cadillac house for a Chevy price," she recalls.
Through the years, the community grew to 700 houses, some with five bedrooms and walk-out basements. Home renovations pushed out rather than up. Bernhardt gave dual life to her carport with doors that allow the 12-by-26-foot space to be an airy screened porch in summer and shelter for her car in the winter.
With all the renovations over the years, what were originally supposed to be starter houses have grown with families, now becoming retirement places for many long-term residents.
For instance, Hal and LaVera Murray had four young boys when they purchased their Treetop Lane rambler more than 30 years ago. As the boys grew, "we kept looking to move," said LaVera Murray. However, acres of woodland that allowed their sons to hone childhood imaginations, "like digging an enormous pit to catch wayward elephants," kept them rooted. "We decided that our small house with its big outdoor space was just right," she said.
Sandy Benarick, a fire department dispatcher, lives in her childhood house across the street from Rose Hill Elementary School. After enclosing her carport and bumping out the front porch, she created a 20-by-30-foot family room, ample for hosting 30 people at a baby shower recently.
Living so close to the school made for memorable moments. "Whenever the crossing guard was late, my mom would be out there in her robe and hairnet, stopping traffic," said Benarick.
That would be a Herculean task today, given the flow of cars along Rose Hill Drive, which connects Franconia and Telegraph roads. "It can take 10 minutes to get out of the drive now," said Benarick. When Van Dorn Street connects directly to Telegraph Road, an upgrade that should be complete next year, neighborhood traffic is projected to decrease by 30 percent.
There are concerns in Rose Hill beyond the traffic. County soil maps show what's called problem soil No. 118 -- marine clay -- throughout the community. This soil tends to shrink or expand according to moisture levels. How any one house is affected seems to be the luck of the draw.
Retired teacher Anne Jackson said her house still has its original clay pipes and no settlement cracks. However, nearby residents have had to shore up entire foundations or replace sagging pipes.
It is the unpredictability of marine clay and the worry over new construction's effect on existing houses that has the Rose Hill Civic Association concerned about proposed development on two wooded sites.
John Lawrence, a United Parcel Service worker whose house is near one of the sites, is not optimistic that the land can be stabilized. "I've seen this happen in other areas. They fill in the area, build, then five years later the driveways start to crack and the steps pull away from the foundation," he said.
Both of the development projects -- one four-acre parcel behind the Highland Park pool and an area west of Cottonwood Road -- must still go through the county site-plan review process. Despite builder claims that technological advances make such development safe, residents hope that the proposals will end there, as similar ones did in 1973.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company