Emotional Investment

The Wedderburn family's decision to sell Midgetville -- eight overgrown acres along the Washington & Old Dominion trail in Vienna -- has sparked an emotional battle. (Dayna Smith - The Washington Post)

"I don't think you can hold up progress," added Ruth Zeul, who has lived nearby since 1957. "But I would like to see it less dense, or not with such big houses on small lots."

Janel Wedderburn Leppin, who was raised on the property, also strongly opposes the sale, said Jane Leppin. The family's insistence on going through with the deal has seriously strained the relationship with her daughter, she said. "We argue about this: How fair is it for a family to have invested their life in a property and then need to get that livelihood out of that property?" asked Leppin.

Janel Leppin refused to comment about the sale. But last month she started a music school -- the Wedderburn School of Music -- on the site.

Her mother is skeptical that her daughter's efforts will succeed in keeping the land in the family.

"She has some lovely ideas, but you have to make them come to reality," said Leppin.

Leppin said a major factor pushing the sale is the expense associated with a genetic kidney ailment -- polycystic kidney disease -- that runs in her family.

Leppin undergoes kidney dialysis at home four times a day and needs a kidney transplant. She and her husband had hoped to use their share of the proceeds of the sale of the Wedderburn land to buy a home closer to the Johns Hopkins medical facility in Baltimore where she will go eventually for a kidney transplant. They also want to set aside some money in case any of their children contract the disease.

But now, she said, neighbors and foot-dragging county officials are destroying those hopes.

"The way we're looking at it now," she said bitterly, "we'll be lucky if it's another two years" before the family project is approved.

"I am just furious at the community as a whole right now," she said. "To me, it's like a bunch of tigers out there."