Quietly Tucked In Near the Potomac

But changing the landscape isn't the goal in the Moyaone Reserve; preserving it is. Before cutting any trees of six-inch diameter or more, homeowners have to get permission from the National Park Service.

Today, Moyaone houses range from a one-bedroom cottage to a grand house with an indoor swimming pool. No two are alike. "It probably has more mid-century modern houses than your average neighborhood with the exception of Hollin Hills," a neighborhood in Fairfax County, Romeo said.

Architect Charles Wagner, one of the early residents who worked with the Fergusons to establish the community, designed and built 15 of the houses, each with Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired simplicity and a shallow pitched roof. He used large expanses of glass to make the most of the views, "bringing the outside inside," said his widow, Nancy Wagner.

One house, now 123 feet long and 20 feet wide, has windows all around the perimeter. Wagner incorporated passive solar energy into his designs by making the most of southern exposures for winter heat.

Charles Goodman, the architect of Hollin Hills, lent his own touches to several houses in Moyaone, and like Wagner, wedded his designs to the rolling topography.

Jeff Yeager's house is a prime example of architecture designed to fit the environment rather than intrude on it. With twists and turns and nary a square corner in the structure, the Yeager house, designed by Goodman, looks as though it was planted on the spot. Curved-glass floor-to-ceiling windows make the most of the backyard view.

Once the home and studio of sculptor Lenore Thomas Straus, the house was one of the first built in Moyaone. Yeager, former president of the American Canoe Association, has spent 18 years tweaking the landscaping on the 3 1/2 acre pie-shaped property -- terracing a slope, converting a swimming pool to a life-filled pond and taming the bamboo. While clearing brush, he uncovered several pieces of Straus's sculpture, now prominently displayed.

Nancy Wagner, who has had careers as a newspaper reporter and a kindergarten teacher, still lives in the house she and her husband built in 1946. Back then, as they hammered and sawed, they watched a pair of eagles build their own nest in an adjacent tree. These days, a protective area limiting construction is required around eagle nests.

Wagner said early residents encouraged the Fergusons' vision of an environmentally connected community. Today, while many residents enjoy produce from a community-sustained farm, concerns center on the effect unchecked development outside Moyaone is having on the level of water in the neighborhood's wells.

Dixie Otis, a resident for 45 years, said Moyaone residents were once thought of as "a bunch of nature-loving nuts." Now, though, "There is a much greater awareness in the population at large of the need to preserve the out-of-doors."

Dorothy Odell, a retired real estate agent who has lived in the community since 1969, said, "People who move here select the community first, then try to find a house." There is a broad range of homes, incomes and politics in Moyaone, she said, describing life there as being "a little bit like Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood."

"People here really place a high value on a sense of place," Yeager said. "There's no substitute for the outside to us. This was a rare spot 18 years ago. It's even more so now."

Wagner said, "The trees separate us, but trees connect us, too."