Arlington Village:
The Experiment Lives On

By Linda Wheeler
Washington Post Staff Writer
February 13, 1993

Arlington Village resident David Malinak said he sometimes believes he would like a larger house but every time he looks at what is available, he decides to stay where he is.

"I keep coming back to Arlington Village," he said. "We have everything here already."

What Malinak, an owner for eight years, finds so attractive in his condominium community is the product of a successful experiment on the part of a developer who responded more than 50 years ago to a federal mandate to build attractive, low-priced housing.

Today, the former rental apartments are 595 condominiums and 98 cooperative apartments that look very much as they did when first built. The colonial-style, two-story brick buildings follow the natural contours of rolling hills that were once potato fields. Each of the units has a distinctive look, a small or major detail, that sets it off from its neighbor.

The Village, as residents like to call it, offers a swimming pool, tennis courts and a park-like setting complete with a forested ravine and small creek running through it. The 53-acre complex is bordered by 16th, Edgewood and Barton streets and Columbia Pike. Forty-seven of the acres are dedicated to open space, streets and parking.

Malinak, who lives in a one-bedroom condo unit, said he has been unable to find a new house that offers him the amenities of Arlington Village as well as the good neighbors who look out for his condo whenever he travels.

"I can be gone for 10 days and come back and know everything will be all right," he said.

According to architectural historian Dennis Domer of the University of Kansas, who wrote a report published in 1989 in conjunction with work he was doing at George Washington University, the builder of Arlington Village, Gustave Ring, was an astute businessman who understood how to create a pleasing environment at low cost. At the time, the Federal Housing Administration under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal was making available millions of dollars of rental housing insurance. Ring had already tapped into that fund with projects in Washington—Westchester Apartments and Brentwood Apartments—and in Arlington with Colonial Village.

By the time Ring made his plans for Arlington Village, he had built six FHA projects. He had hit on a formula that worked: tight organization, close supervision and a finished product that was appealing. In Arlington Village, he built 357 one-bedroom, 271 two-bedroom and 33 three-bedroom apartments, each with a slightly different look. Ring thought of the Village as a total community complete with a small shopping center at one end. He provided full maintenance, lawn service and communal washing and drying rooms. Longtime residents say little has changed from the rental days except the steam heat has been replaced by individual heat pumps. What Ring offered was what tenants wanted and what the condominiums offer is what buyers want.

Real estate agent Lynn Brock of Coldwell Bankers Residential Real Estate said the natural setting of Arlington Village coupled with reasonable prices draw first-time buyers and singles.

She said records indicate about 80 units have changed hands in the past 18 months and there were 12 on the market as of early February. The larger units sell for about $130,000 and the smaller ones run about $110,000, she said.

"It is a great starter house, especially for a one-income family," she said. "Most of my buyers choose Arlington Village because of the woodsy feeling, the sense of open space."

Although there is no Metro station, there is regular bus service on Columbia Pike. Brock said the absence of a Metro station may be why the prices at Arlington Village have remained relatively modest.

The transition from rental to condominium was not without its problems. It came at a time when concerns about the loss of low- and moderate-income housing in the Washington area had become intense. When Arlington Village Associates bought the complex for $9.7 million in 1979, they had to agree to sell 98 of the units for $2.5 million to the Holladay Corp., which would create cooperative housing for elderly and low-income tenants.

One of those who bought her apartment as a condominium was Ruth W. Stewart who moved to Arlington Village from Washington in June 1963.

"I wanted to get out of the city and a friend invited me to visit her at Arlington Village," she said. "I looked around and thought it was real nice."

Stewart moved in and caught buses on Columbia Pike that took her to the door of the Agriculture Department, where she worked in a variety of jobs before retiring as a branch chief.

She was enthusiastic about buying her apartment when the time came. However, Stewart said, she was used as a "guinea pig" by the developer. "I was the first to convert," she said. "I stayed in here while they renovated. It was in early March and they had to cut off the heat and I think it was one of the coldest months of that winter. It went on for about three weeks. There were holes in the walls. It was a mess."

Stewart said the new management later decided to provide a hospitality apartment for those whose apartments were being renovated.

Stewart remembers a prohibition against pets when she was a renter. But that has changed and dogs and their walkers can be seen on the streets and along the ravine.

But there are rules by which buyers must abide. Malinak said yard sales are prohibited "for aesthetic and safety reasons," no one can have a permanently installed washing machine because "the pipes are so old" and no fences are allowed to intrude on the original landscape design.

But he said residents are encouraged to plant gardens and courses are offered on how to prune trees. A committee keeps track of the now-aging trees in the public areas. The removal of a tree causes great concern within the community, Malinak said.

"Every time we have to take out a tree, it is a wrenching experience," he said. "But we put in new trees. We keep such close track of all our trees, that each one is numbered."

Malinak said residents gather for meetings, to play tennis and for an annual pool party. According to historian Domer, early residents tended to socialize together as well but had no need for a formal association. They met through their children or while hanging out laundry in the back yard.

Domer wrote in his report that the solid design and advanced social concepts that Ring incorporated into Arlington Village have held up well.

"Ring and [designer Harvey] Warwick asked the question, 'What kind of housing do people desire in the 1930s and 1940s, and how can those desires be met cheaply and with the highest quality materials possible?'

"When they and others, especially in the Federal Housing Administration, answered the question with the garden apartment idea they selected very convenient sites close to the city. They built their apartments to last, using relatively cheap labor and quick, efficient building methods."

He said Ring selected the tenants, maintained the lawns and fixed and painted the apartments regularly. And for 11 years Ring made a good profit on Arlington Village and then sold it in 1950 for $4 million. His original investment was about $800,000.

"It was a superb formula for becoming a millionaire," Domer wrote.

Domer concludes his 26-page history of Arlington Village by saying the concept of garden apartments works well because people need to establish and maintain a continuing relationship with the natural world.

"Gustave Ring ... made money while he made sense," Domer wrote. "This need for garden apartments should not abate, and this means many Villagers now and in the future will reap the benefits of Ring's human insight and business acumen."

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