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35 Years in Our Arlington Home
William Sundwick
Our 1983 marriage presented us with two one-bedroom condos
in Arlington, Virginia. We chose to live in mine (a tad nicer?), while my wife
put hers on the market. The plan was to start shopping for a house, townhouse,
or at least a 2-bedroom Fairlington condo, immediately. My completing school
and returning to the Library of Congress from sabbatical delayed that search
for a few months.
I had already been living in Arlington for ten years by that
time, and my wife in her condo on Columbia Pike for five. We had been a couple
since 1979.
First big question was: where do we want to live? Next
question: what can we afford there? One-bedrooms in South Arlington, in those
days, were selling in the mid-$20s to low-$50s. Mine, in Fairlington, was on
the high end, hers on the Pike, the low end.
We had some savings, too – and, a promise of help with down
payments from both sets of parents. There were no outstanding debts except for
a modest car loan held by my wife (on her 1980 Chevette) -- school, a 36-hour
master’s program at AU, was, amazingly, already paid up!
Therefore, our real estate agent, Mary Lee Berger, of Better
Homes Realty, advised us that we should be looking in the $110 - $130 range. We
were cautious about debt, however, and looked askance at the higher end of that
estimate. Our limit was the low end – even lower if we could do it. Interest
rates on mortgages in those days were topping 13%. As we started looking in
Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax County, we soon discovered
that going lower might not be possible (in any dwelling we considered
acceptable).
There were two almosts,
a townhouse off Carlin Springs Rd. and another in a new development called
“Alden Glen” way out Lee Highway past Fairfax City. They were both priced in
the $90s, but less than favorable locations and construction quality, it
seemed.
We were starting to get anxious. Obvious solution, said Mary
Lee, be more flexible with the financial constraints! She started mentioning
single-family homes in North Arlington and Alexandria. We were skeptical of
this risky step. Del Ray neighborhood? Come on!
We didn’t take her seriously but played along. She directed
us to a house just coming on the market in a North Arlington neighborhood
called “Madison Manor.” Never heard of it. We accompanied her on a visit. It
was a pleasant neighborhood near the Westover Shopping Center, with its quaint
small-town angled parking on the main through street, Washington Blvd. We knew
that strip mall because of the Black Forest Inn, then a noted bakery as well as
restaurant, who had catered our wedding cake in January 1983.
We discovered the local elementary school, McKinley, only a
block from the house. This seemed like a plus, should we have kids. It was a
good school, too, Mary Lee assured us. Another attractive detail about the
neighborhood, originally developed in the
1940s as a couple dozen brick colonials and cape cods, was the easy walk to
a future Metro station at East Falls Church, scheduled to open the following
year. We both thought that walking to Metro, then riding straight to the
Library of Congress door, was a major selling point.
Alas, as expected, it just wasn’t in our range – listed at
$123,900. Mary Lee, however, assured us that the sellers, a husband/wife Arlington
Police couple, were eager. Bargaining possible?
The house was
incredible – eight whole rooms (albeit small) in a center-hall brick colonial.
And nicely done built-in storage in the finished basement. One large family had
lived in the house for several years in the 1960s, finished the basement, and used
it for bedrooms for some of their six children -- before code required egress
windows from basements. What would we do with all that space? No way we could
afford it. But it even had a fireplace in the living room, and “ESIK” (Eating Space In Kitchen -- a bar built into one wall in
the galley kitchen, maybe space for a high chair). There was also a spacious
yard, front and rear, with lots of azaleas, a dogwood in front, tulip poplar
providing shade in the rear, and a gravel dog run connecting driveway with
aluminum shed (husband was an Arlington K-9 officer, wife a detective). The
front yard was bigger, a pie-shaped corner lot, where one street comes to an
end at a “through street” winding down a hill (quotes around “through street” –
there are no
through streets in Madison Manor). Very pleasant house, very pleasant
neighborhood. Surely, Mary Lee couldn’t drive the hard bargain we needed, could
she?
She did. We closed the deal for $115K. Still more than we
wanted to pay, but it seemed like a veritable dream house to us. And, so it
was, when we moved in. That was August 1984.
When our two boys (born 1985 and 1988) started getting bigger, however, and
we all started accumulating “stuff,” things changed. But we stayed. So did the
neighbors next door, who had bought their house one year before us – raising
their two kids in tandem with ours. They have become family. Both families have
built on – something Madison Manor (and other Arlington neighborhood) people
do.
We engaged in two
separate expansion projects. The first one, in 2002, finally made the boys’
bedrooms livable for teenagers, and gave us a “bonus room” (family room and
bath) off the living room. Dave Merrill, a neighbor who had a daughter same age
as our youngest, was our contractor – outstanding attention to detail,
craftsmanship, and sensible project planning. We did make the mistake of not
having a surveyor do a new plat, and ran into a penalty (both time and money)
when the next door neighbors on the other side (not “family”) ascertained the
foundation was outside the minimum setback – forcing us to dig it up and start
over. That was on us.
But we have enhanced our living experience immensely from
that addition over the last 17 years. I’m writing now from my office in an
alcove off that bonus room. Our younger son negotiated his entire high school
career from his bigger room, his older brother left for college shortly after
completion of the project but did return home for a couple years after college.
The timing of our
second big expansion project may have been a little too late for the boys to
fully appreciate it, but it has given their parents the opportunity to have the
large kitchen, complete with central island, that they always wanted – and, a
luxurious master suite with two full closets, two separately located sinks, and
vaulted ceiling. This 2009 addition paved the way for a later minor expansion
of the shared hallway bath on the second floor into the original master
bedroom, now a guest bedroom.
If we could get our act together to furnish the boys’ rooms,
we could claim (honestly) a four-bedroom, 3 ½ bath home! We have not. We are
empty nesters now, with no young families to visit us– only old people. The
boys’ rooms are denuded of furnishings, except for storage. They have both become
very large closets.
Next project will be finding a contractor for a final
basement redo. We need to get rid of paneling and dropped ceiling. Another part
of the plan will be knocking down the wall between the separate laundry room
and what we call the “den” (after its original purposing as children’s bedroom
with built-in storage). We want to turn a three-room basement into two rooms.
Then will come downsizing. Not sure when, but we must face
the inevitable. Much of our planning now is aimed at marketplace issues. What
will sell? Maximum return? We didn’t do so well in that regard with our first
two additions. Zillow makes it look like we’ve invested more than we’ll get
back.
But who knows? Amazon’s arrival may jack up house prices in
Arlington, they say.
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