Chesterbrook Woods:
Block Parties Not a Hit

By Julia Angwin
Special to The Washington Post
May 22, 1993

Nine minutes from the Kennedy Center lies a lush suburb that resembles an English garden in the spring, with its carefully maintained bounty of azaleas, dogwood and honeysuckle.

“I’m sure there aren’t many places as quiet and civilized as Chesterbrook Woods,” said Jurgen Hecker, a German journalist who has lived in the neighborhood for 1 1/2 years. “You don’t really notice that you’re so close to the capital of the Western world.”

But being close to the bustling capital is one of the main attractions of this serene suburb of more than 500 homes on the border of Fairfax and Arlington counties.

“If I’m not driving [the car pool], it’s about 20 minutes from here to my office at 14th and Independence,” said Douglas Corbin, a budget analyst at the Agriculture Department.

And driving home, Corbin said he continues to be stunned at the beauty of the area, with its sloping manicured lawns and abundant flowers.

“I literally will come home and think how pretty the neighborhood is, even after 17 years,” he said.

Corbin and his wife, Susan, moved to Chesterbrook Woods in 1975, and sent their two children to Fairfax County public schools, where Susan is a teacher.

In the 17 years that the Corbins have lived there, the quiet suburb has changed from being populated mostly by retired military personnel to a group of younger two-income families that appreciate the short commute to downtown Washington as well as the excellent public schools.

The 40- to 50-year-old houses range in price from $250,000 to $1 million, said Pat Derwinski, a real estate agent at Weichert, Realtors who lives in the neighborhood.

Joel Kanter, a Chesterbrook Woods resident since 1989, said that on his cul-de-sac of 10 houses there are 16 children.

“Here, the feel is that everybody is in their thirties or forties and everybody’s raising kids,” said Kanter, an investment manager at Tysons Corner. “Which is great if you’re raising kids or if you’re looking for a babysitter.”

Although there are no sidewalks on the winding streets, Kanter said he is comfortable letting his children play on them.

“Everybody drives down the streets pretty slowly, and uses the streets as sidewalks,” he said.

But the children may be the only ones hanging out on the streets.

“It’s not the kind of community where people hang over the back fence and talk to each other,” said John Sadler, a 14-year resident. One reason is that most residents have half-acre lots, with trees blocking views of neighbors’ yards.

Moreover, residents apparently are not very interested in group activities. “You don’t have block parties and a lot of mothers and strollers walking down the streets,” Sadler said. “If you want to stay by yourself, it’s a good neighborhood for you.”

None of this bothers Sadler, a civilian engineer for the Navy. If he ever wanted to change houses he said he would look in Chesterbrook Woods.

“It’s pretty hard to beat the commute,” he said. That plus the schools and the quietness of the neighborhood drew him from North Arlington in 1979.

The community wasn’t always as sedate. “Years ago, when we were much, much smaller we used to have an annual dinner dance,” said Nancy Falck, president of the Chesterbrook Woods Citizens Association, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1967. But the dance died as the area grew.

Even Falck’s association almost “went dormant” a few years ago, she said. But residents revived it by meeting less regularly and providing speakers at association meetings.

“Since we’re not having any controversies we don’t have huge crowds,” she said. Mostly the meetings draw 20 to 25 people, although the recent shooting in front of the nearby CIA compound drew 50 people to a community meeting.

Virginia Dillon, a 30-year resident of Chesterbrook Woods, said she would prefer more community involvement.

“If I could change anything,” she said, “every suburban neighborhood should have a place to walk to. It would be simple to put a place where people could just run into each other walking.”

As it stands, she said, you have to drive 1 1/2 miles to buy a gallon of milk.

But the neighborhood watch group serves a similar function, she said: “It helps people to get to know each other.”

The group, run by a retired Navy admiral, patrols the neighborhood daily to deter burglaries and vandalism.

“We were the first one in the McLean police district,” said Donald Baer, who started the program 18 years ago after a rash of burglaries and vandalism in the area. “It was a necessity, we had to do something.”

Now, more than 250 residents volunteer to patrol the neighborhood in pairs (the Corbins go together) with a mobile phone. If they see anything suspicious, they are instructed to call 911 or the local police station.

“There is no confrontation at all,” Baer said. “It’s a deterrent thing.”

Baer moved to Chesterbrook Woods in 1954, when most of the area was still woods. “When the kids were growing up we could walk from here to the river,” he said. “Now there are over 500 houses behind us.”

The million-dollar homes of Chesterbrook Farms and the more modest homes of Chain Bridge Forest have encroached on the community, blurring the boundaries.

But Baer is not dissatisfied. Since retiring in 1978, he has devoted himself to cultivating his garden, and to the house that he and his wife built 39 years ago.

After listing the neighborhood’s numerous attributes for a minute or two, he simply concluded, “It’s just a nice place to live.”

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