Defined by Nature, Shaped by History

Residents Enjoy Water, Woods and Touches Of a Ghostly Past

On the banks of Lake d'Evereux, Greg Nichols stood with his three children, baiting a hook and enjoying the serenity of the lake, while Peter, 5, Phoebe, 3, and James, 7, looked at the catfish in the bucket.

"Everybody caught one fish, and Peter caught two," Nichols said. "We try to come down here when we can."

"I like catching frogs," Peter added.

Lake d'Evereux is the focus of a neighborhood of the same name, 281 townhouses and single-family houses along Telegraph Road in Fairfax County that were built from 1979 to 1985. It has two entrances off Telegraph Road and backs to the 1,425-acre Huntley Meadows Park, so it's isolated to some extent. The original farmhouse, known as the Belvale house, still stands at the end of a long driveway that feeds into Telegraph Road.

Everybody seems to love the lake, which consists of a main section and a covelike arm where the Nichols family was fishing. What started out as a pond on a pony farm was altered slightly in size and shape when the neighborhood was constructed. The lake, a magnet for wildlife, has fountains that are lit in the evenings. Fishing and boating are allowed, but for community residents only.

In 1979, when construction began to convert the farm into the neighborhood of Lake d'Evereux, the first developer built a couple of houses and then went out of business. Another followed suit, and the third builder finished the job, said Marklin Mandt, who lives in one of the few houses the first builder finished.

Mandt, who has four children, said her daughter, 8, looks for turtles in the lake. When her son was a teenager, "they used to take the rubber raft across the lake," she said.

Mandt's house is on a court near the front of the community, where the original farmhouse still stands. The big white Belvale house dates to 1764. It has a steep roof, a parlor-type room to the side and pillars supporting a porch overhang at the front door. A Historic American Buildings Survey listing from 1970 says there was a "cemetery which may have been a slave burial ground" on the property, but there's no sign of that now.

The mansion was built for George Johnston, a friend of Patrick Henry and George Washington. Johnston was closely associated with the 1765 resolution opposing the Stamp Act. He died in 1766, possibly in the gun room of the house, according to documents in the Virginia Room of the Fairfax County Public Library.

In 1977, when the new community was being discussed, the Fairfax County History Commission pushed to keep the name Belvale for the neighborhood. The developer wanted to raze the house, but Edith Sprouse, then chairman of the commission, suggested that "the retention of old structures adds a perspective and flavor that is often lacking in a new development," according to county records.

Legend among residents in the area tells of a ghost that haunts Belvale's grounds, particularly a cedar grove that once stood at the south end of the house.

An article in the September 1964 Hollin Hills Bulletin, a newsletter from another Fairfax County community, said that the Johnston family sold the house to A.B. Weldeford in 1925 and that stories of the ghost emerged then.