In Ashburn, a Dividing Line Between Pasture and Future

When Deirdre Carrell looks at Belmont Ridge Road, which runs past her family's farm in the Loudoun County town of Ashburn, she doesn't see a street. She sees a dividing line.

On one side of Belmont Ridge, farms and haystacks fill lush, green land -- land so rich with wildlife that Carrell's husband, Thierry, only has to venture into his 40-acre "back yard" to bag some game.

On the other side bulldozers and dump trucks and a partially constructed planned community, Broadlands, have replaced a dense forest.

"This road is really a divider," said Deidre Carrell, 43, who operates a nursery from her farm, where many locals buy plants and flowers. "The other side is almost all new development. A sewage problem on this side of the street prevents a lot of development, so I guess it's safe . . . for now."

The town of Ashburn, which is just northwest of Dulles International Airport and east of Leesburg, was established in the early 1900s. At the time its residents mostly were dairy farmers and the town was a stop along the Washington & Old Dominion Railway. Only about 200 people lived in the original town, which rapidly has been surrounded by a number of planned communities. At least five such communities have been built or started in the last decade.

"We were amazed when a sign for our road went up on the [Dulles] toll road because there were only about five people on it at the time," said Carrell, a 16-year resident. "But I guess when Broadlands opens up it will be a major artery."

Ashburn's population has grown to about 11,000, increasing dramatically after 1988 because of residential development. In 1995, during the Washington area real estate market slump, Ashburn was one of the few areas where home sales increased. The town also has become a hot commercial property -- last week America Online Inc. moved its headquarters there from Vienna, and in 1992 the Washington Redskins relocated practice facilities and offices there.

"It is, without a doubt, a hot area -- definitely up and coming," said Greg Curtice, regional sales representative for Lusk TRW/Redi, a Silver Spring real estate information company. "The reasons are that it is a nice community, very clean, out in the country, not a lot of traffic and has just nice developments in general."

Ashburn Farm and Ashburn Village, the two planned communities adjacent to the old town of Ashburn, are made up mostly of detached homes ranging in price from $175,000 to $300,000 and town houses that sell for $120,000 to $165,000, Curtice said. About 5,000 homes have been sold in the two developments -- a number that is expected to double by the anticipated completion of the projects in 2000.

It is difficult to estimate the value of the older homes in "Ashburn proper," Curtice said, because they differ in style and acreage and because most longtime residents don't move away.

Calvin Partlow, 72, has lived in Ashburn so long, the county named a road after him three years ago.

"I thought you had to be ancient or famous to have a road named after you," said Partlow, whose family moved to the town in 1930 when he was 6 years old.

Many Ashburn residents know Partlow and his wife, Ernestine, who live in a house they built in 1950, because they used to own the village general store and local hangout. Partlow's, on Ashburn Road, is a pit stop for the bicyclists and in-line skaters who dominate the bike path that was once railway train tracks.

"I don't know what some bikers on the path would do if Partlow's wasn't there," said Susan Strisik, 37, who has lived at Ashburn Farm for six years.

"On weekends, people just park their bikes and get Gatorade and lounge," said John Beiler, who bought the store from the Partlows in 1986 with partner Dwight James. "It upset some of the locals who couldn't get to the store for all the bikes."

Some long-standing residents are disturbed, however, by the changes Beiler and James made to the old-fashioned shop with its original wood floors, which sold everything from horse collars to salt and pepper when it was first opened by Calvin Partlow's father and uncle.

"It used to be a cute general store where a boy would take your groceries to your car for you, and it turned into one of those junky roadside places," Carrell said. "I don't even shop there anymore."

Beiler acknowledged that the store is not what it used to be, when farmers would pull up milk crates and talk.

"We had to become more convenience-oriented and streamline a bit," he said. "It's more of a fast food type operation now."

But the remodeling doesn't bother the shop's former owner.

"A lot of people ask if I wish I'd kept [the store], and my answer is no," Partlow said. "I wouldn't have changed it, and it would have dried up. It moved with the times."

The changing times often are inconvenient, however, especially for Ashburn's young residents. Carrell's daughter, Erica, 10, has had to change elementary schools three times.

"We didn't move, but because of all the people moving into Ashburn Farm and Ashburn Village, new schools opened and boundary lines changed," said Carrell, who also has an 8-year-old son, Thierry. "And now I wonder when this will happen again. My kids miss their old school terribly."

And many longtime Ashburn dwellers try to maintain some sense of the old community while teaching new residents local traditions.

"Whenever I see bicyclists out front, I run out and ask if they want fresh basil from my garden," Jill Hill said. "Sometimes they look like they're in shock that someone talked to them. There's kind of a mentality here that everyone shares. I wish the new people would realize that."

Despite the occasional inconveniences, Ashburn residents say there's no place like home.

"After the birth of my second child, I was tired of our house and we moved to a town house in Sterling," Carrell said. "And it was a big mistake. Once I was out of Ashburn, I was miserable."

She later moved back.