PINE SPRING

MCM CHARM TUCKED INSIDE THE BELTWAY

Pine Spring is the Luria Brothers' companion to Holmes Run Acres, 121 single-family homes on about 55 acres in the Falls Church area, most built in the early 1950s around 1952. What sets it apart is the roster of architects. Pine Spring's homes were designed under the partnership that became Keyes, Smith, Satterlee and Lethbridge, and that meant Arthur Keyes, Francis Donald Lethbridge, Nicholas Satterlee, and, notably, Chloethiel Woodard Smith.

Smith deserves her own paragraph. She was one of the most important modernist architects and urban planners in Washington, the sixth woman inaugurated into the AIA College of Fellows, and at her peak she led the largest woman-owned architecture firm in the country. She master-planned the redevelopment of Southwest Washington, including Capitol Park, Harbour Square, and Waterside Mall. To have a designer of that caliber working on a modest 55-acre subdivision tells you how seriously this circle took accessible housing.

Pine Spring homes feature wood-beamed cathedral ceilings, large brick-wall fireplaces, and walls of glass, in compact atomic-ranch forms. The neighborhood won numerous awards and earned write-ups in Time magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. Original homes were modest, such as a three-bedroom, one-bath, 1,060-square-foot ranch. Pine Spring is not a designated historic district, and its compact, accessible homes have made it a hub of sensitive contemporary renovation, which is exactly the kind of nuance a buyer needs to understand before making an offer.

Pine feeds into the Fairfax County Public Schools of Pine Spring Elementary, Jackson Middle, and Falls Church High.  Additional information on the local school system can be found at GreatSchools.org.

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