There's Room for Critters, Kayaks, Individualistic Owners
By Ann Cameron Siegal
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, August 19, 2006
He wants to kayak to work and she wants a goat, so Loren Looger and his wife, Covington Brown, are moving to Broad Run Farms in eastern Loudoun County.
Looger, a biochemist, plans to paddle to work at Janelia Farm, a new 689-acre scientific research campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, about two miles upstream.
While house hunting, the two were overwhelmed by large developments that looked strikingly similar. Then they found Broad Run Farms.
"As soon as I drove in there, I felt like I could breathe," Brown said of the mostly agriculturally zoned community nestled in a corner where the shallow water of Broad Run meets the Potomac River.
The community has a rural atmosphere with an eclectic mix of housing styles. One recent Saturday morning, the clip clop of horse hooves on pavement blended with a chorus of bird songs as teenagers Katie Wenger and Anna Nielsen rode their steeds through the community.
"When kids have horses, they usually don't have neighbors so close by," said Katie's mother, Tracy, a real estate agent. "This community can give them the best of both worlds -- horses and kids next door."
The more than 300 houses in the neighborhood sit on lots that range from half an acre to more than seven acres. The Wengers have four acres, enough space for their menagerie of goats, horses and dogs, including a huggable St. Bernard. "One of our neighbors had an emu," Tracy Wenger said.
She moved to Broad Run Farms from Great Falls with her parents when she was in high school. She returned 12 years ago to raise her own family there. "Lots of people I know moved here because it reminded them of old Great Falls," she said.
Broad Run Farms offers access to a mix of environments. To the west is Broad Run, ideal for quiet fishing or paddling and shallow enough for kids to poke around. In the center of the community is the 23-acre Cedar Creek Farm, a private equestrian facility with an indoor horse arena.
And yet, within 10 minutes, you can be golfing at Lansdowne Resort, taking classes at George Washington University's Loudoun campus or shopping at Dulles Town Center. Another 10 minutes gets you to Dulles International Airport.
The absence of a homeowners association appealed to Looger and Brown. In fact, retired high school coach Mike Nunnally proudly wears a T-shirt defining Broad Run Farms' HOA as "Homeowners Opposed to Authority."
While some homeowners associations promote a version of "you can't paint your house purple with polka dots" rules, one Broad Run Farms resident has done just that to his barn. The barn is visible from the path to the community's private boat launch area. Residents point to it as a symbol of the freedom they have to do what they wish with their property.
"An independent streak runs through a lot of people here," said Nunnally, emphasizing that Broad Run Farms has a civic association with voluntary dues of $50 and a hands-off approach to personal property.
The flip side of having minimal restrictions is that there are the occasional front yards hidden under clusters of private and commercial vehicles. Association President Rob Gehrke, who keeps his boat in his driveway, noted that one resident has a helicopter in his front yard. "The only thing you can do is control what's on your property," he said.
"We're free spirits who want to be left alone," said Wayne Nielsen, a local scoutmaster.
There are no streetlights, sidewalks or curbs. The neighborhood was hooked up to public sewer in 1994, but residents still rely on well water. A recent proposal to extend the county's heritage trail through private property backing to the river was dropped because of the overwhelming opposition of Broad Run Farms residents. "There's an existing trail right across the river," Gehrke said.
The Broad Run Farms area has a history of fending off intruders. While camped with his troops at Miskel Farm, located within the community, Confederate John Singleton Mosby moved closer to the rank of major by fighting off a surprise Union attack on April 1, 1863.
A more recent intruder is trichloroethylene, found in some of the wells in the eastern part of the community. In 2005, residents and county supervisor Bruce Tulloch worked with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to secure, at state cost, filtration systems on properties affected. The suspected source of the contamination, a former landfill just east of the community, is for sale, said Gehrke, "but the liabilities that come with it far exceed any profits that could be made."
Today, there is a sense of calm in Broad Run Farms that seems missing in surrounding areas. Residents along Youngs Cliff Road enjoy some of the only privately owned riverfront lots north of Great Falls.
Psychologist Don Jewell saunters across his five-acre property to a couple of lawn chairs and a fire circle at the water's edge, where a shallow sliver of the Potomac separates the community from Selden Island, a turf farm.
There, in what he refers to as "one of the best bass fishing streams in the county," the steady trickle of water flowing over a line of rocks nurtures his muse as he writes his memoirs.
"It's like a cathedral back here," he said, gesturing towards the mature sycamore trees along the river bank.
Jewell moved to Broad Run Farms 43 years ago after leaving the Air Force with $600 to his name. "I was looking for waterfront property," he said.
His three sons grew up in an outdoorsy environment where they could build caves into the hillside, scour the property for arrowheads or camp out on the spur of the moment. Little has changed for today's young families.
Jewell's tranquil setting has been seriously disrupted only once, back in 1972 when Hurricane Agnes rolled through, sending flood waters rising. "We rode out of here on our horses," he said.
Some of the community's more senior residents have been spurred to outdoor involvement because of their setting. Brit Peterson, 87, used to cross-country ski throughout the community and began teaching the sport to the blind through Ski for Light when she was 60. Today she enjoys a peaceful scene of grazing horses from her kitchen window.
Muriel Spetzman and her husband were "outdoor people living and working in D.C." when they found Broad Run Farms in 1952. Now 90, Spetzman was Loudoun County's Outstanding Senior Volunteer in 2002 and a WETA Hometown Hero because of her work at nearby Claude Moore Park's Frogshackle Nature Center.
She recalls with enthusiasm her encounters with wildlife on her property overlooking Broad Run. Hesitation comes only when she tries to find the right word to describe her neighborhood to a visitor.
The words "splendid" and "exquisite," she said, are far too ordinary.
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