Clarendon Area's Urban Energy Helps Melt Midlife Ordeals Away

The new buildings in Arlington are attracting such boomers as Robert Hand, Dee Emma and Susan Cherney, who moved there after major life upheavals, all with the disposable cash to live in the pricey area, where a one-bedroom condominium can cost up to $425,000.

Hand, 58, rented a studio apartment in a new building in Ballston last May after his marriage broke up in Maine and he decided to chuck the corporate life. When he arrived in the area, he first lived in Germantown and then discovered the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.

Hand walks to his job as a personal trainer at Sport & Health at Ballston Common mall. He hangs out at the neighborhood's dog parks with his sheltie, Dodger. He regularly goes to the opera and ballet in the District. And he lingers over the long city view from his 18th-floor apartment.

"My life is packed," Hand said. He's now looking to buy a condo in the area, perhaps in the same building. "I wasn't anticipating putting roots down here at all," he said.

Arlington planners have been encouraging growth along the Metro corridors for decades, but only in the past few years has it really taken off.

From 2000 through the end of the decade, the fast-developing area will have had more than 8,000 new homes -- mostly apartments in high-rise buildings -- built or in the planning stages, planning officials said. Despite a slower housing market, agents and county officials remain bullish on the area because of its popularity.

Dee Emma, 55, and Susan Cherney, 55, met in the elevator in their building in Court House, where they were both renting, soon after they moved to the area following major life changes.

Emma's marriage had just broken up. Cherney, divorced and living in San Francisco for more than 20 years, moved back to Arlington, her home town, just one week after her youngest daughter went off to college.

The two women became fast friends, taking long walks into the District together, strolling through the weekend farmer's market, taking dance lessons and meeting up for dinner or cocktails on Wilson Boulevard in the evening.

Sally Sislak, manager of the Dance Factory in Virginia Square, said she has lost count of how often she's heard a version of the same boomer story of loss -- and then renewal -- over the past few years. "It's almost like a church in that way," she said.

While Emma and Cherney were on the studio floor practicing new moves, a fresh love was tentatively blossoming just a skirt swing away.

Ray Tenenholtz, 63, who recently separated from his wife of more than 35 years, and Kim Slade, 63, a widow, got together at the dance studio after Slade shyly asked Tenenholtz to dance. They now go dancing together four nights a week.

"People like us, who are divorced or widowed or their kids have grown up, we need to have social lives and make new friends," Tenenholtz said.

"It's not easy to find the right person," Slade, a Rosslyn resident, said as she held Tenenholtz's hand before they took another twirl on a recent open-dance night. "I'm so lucky that I met Ray here."

Meanwhile, Fuentes is settled comfortably into her two-bedroom, 830-square-foot condo that she bought last year for $422,000. She's looking forward to sipping wine on her south-facing balcony on summer evenings after work and taking her daughter to the building's pool.

"The more I live here, the more I know I made the right choice," she said.