Agent Meyer of Re/Max Allegiance said of a condo like Abbott's: "Four years ago, a unit like that would've sold for $125,000 on a good day after being on the market for a few months."
Both complexes are in park-like settings with big mature trees, landscaped courtyards, winding roadways, bike paths and walking trails -- built at a time when land was cheap and available. Both have several community pools, tennis courts, volleyball courts, workout rooms and playgrounds.
Parkfairfax, built in 1941 and 1942, has 1,684 all-brick garden-style condo units.
(Photos Rich Lipski -- The Washington Post)
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Residents use a pedestrian walkway to cross busy Interstate 395 to reach restaurants and movie theaters in Shirlington. Fairlington, which includes seven separate homeowners associations, is a loose triangle bounded by Quaker Lane, King Street and I-395 with a little bulge of units on the other side of the interstate. Parkfairfax, across Quaker Lane from Fairlington, is a loose loop bounded by Martha Custis Drive and Gunston Road.
In style, the two complexes are similar, with all-brick housing grouped around pleasant courtyards. In Parkfairfax, every condo has its own outside front door with accompanying stoop or columned entrance, making them seem almost like single-family houses. In Fairlington, most of the condos also have separate outside front doors. Many of the condos in both developments have back patios.
Prices at Parkfairfax are generally lower than in Fairlington for several reasons, agents say. There is no central air conditioning or heating in Parkfairfax, with wall and baseboard units the norm. The Fairlington condos tend to be larger, mainly because many come with basements. Homeowners can fence their back yards in Fairlington, whereas in Parkfairfax only plants can be used as an outside divider. And most Parkfairfax units don't have their own washers and dryers -- there are laundry rooms instead.
These days, no one builds low-rise brick developments like Fairlington and Parkfairfax in close-areas because land is too precious and construction materials too expensive.
Many homeowners say one reason they were attracted to the complexes was the feeling they were well-constructed. The walls are thick plaster rather than drywall; cinder block firewalls are sandwiched between the duplexes in Fairlington.
"The buildings that were recently built around here didn't look as well-built to me," said Tiffani Worsham, a teacher from Baton Rouge, La., who moved here for a job with Fairfax County public schools and bought a two-bedroom condo in Parkfairfax in July for $319,000. "This place has wood floors, crown moldings. It's been here a long time and it has a better feel about it."
The truth is, though, that Parkfairfax and Fairlington, like most wartime housing, were built in a hurry and their construction was hampered by wartime shortages. Many of the Washington area complexes built during the war years, especially those in Southeast, were shoddily constructed, historians say.
"Contractors did the worst possible job in a lot of cases," said Ryan Shepard, collections librarian at the D.C. Historical Society. "A lot of war housing was thrown up in Anacostia during the wartime years. The government threw the money out, but then didn't oversee the projects. There was a lot of corruption and organized crime was involved."
Shephard said, "There was a massive housing crunch at the time. They couldn't dillydally around."
Still, Fairlington and Parkfairfax were built with an attention to detail that would be hard to find today, with features such as all-brick exteriors with some stonework, ornamental chimneys, slate roofs, dormers, columned entrances and arched windows.
And it's precisely those old details that attract many buyers.
"I love the look of the brick buildings, and the layout of the development," said Cristina Stensvaag, who bought a 1,600-square-foot one-bedroom condo with a basement in Fairlington in 2000 for $175,500. "The buildings have so much personality. I love that it's on the historic register, too." Both Fairlington and Parkfairfax were put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
