Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Lake Barcroft has always intrigued me somewhat. The houses are large, on beautiful acreage, with mature trees. And the lake itself is a great amenity. So at first glance, it seems natural that the homes there would cost 700K and up. At the same time--and let me state outright that this is debatable--the schools nearby are considered by some (perhaps many) not to be among the best. And the commute to DC is much longer than from areas with a shorter commute and what many would consider to be better schools (Arlington, McLean, Falls Church). So it's a head-scratcher as to why Lake Barcroft homes are so pricey.
Arlington Ridge is similar in that it's very expensive yet zoned for what is widely regarded (perhaps unfairly, perhaps not) the least desirable HS in Arlington. But my understanding is that the folks there are, like those in LB, affluent enough to send their kids to private schools, and they pay the big bucks to be a stone's throw from DC and the Pentagon. But Lake Barcroft is farther out. Maybe I'm just undervaluing the half-acre lots or easy access to small boating.
Lake Barcroft has always intrigued me somewhat. The houses are large, on beautiful acreage, with mature trees. And the lake itself is a great amenity. So at first glance, it seems natural that the homes there would cost 700K and up. At the same time--and let me state outright that this is debatable--the schools nearby are considered by some (perhaps many) not to be among the best. And the commute to DC is much longer than from areas with a shorter commute and what many would consider to be better schools (Arlington, McLean, Falls Church). So it's a head-scratcher as to why Lake Barcroft homes are so pricey.
Arlington Ridge is similar in that it's very expensive yet zoned for what is widely regarded (perhaps unfairly, perhaps not) the least desirable HS in Arlington. But my understanding is that the folks there are, like those in LB, affluent enough to send their kids to private schools, and they pay the big bucks to be a stone's throw from DC and the Pentagon. But Lake Barcroft is farther out. Maybe I'm just undervaluing the half-acre lots or easy access to small boating.
I guess the market sorts it out. It is a unique community for this area, with an appealing combination of contemporary houses from the 50s and 60s, decent sized lots, and a private lake. It's not as easy a commute to DC as McLean or Arlington, but it's less than 10 miles from downtown, it's not too far from Tysons, and it's convenient to both the Pentagon and Fort Belvoir. I tend to bristle when people call area neighborhoods "cookie-cutter," but I am comfortable that, whatever this means, Lake Barcroft is not "cookie-cutter."
On the other hand, it's near a bunch of run-down garden apartments that stretch from Seven Corners to Bailey's Crossroads, and people in this area with enough money to afford a Lake Barcroft home don't always want to send their kids to school with poor kids who may still be learning English. The suspicion - which people may or may not attempt to verify - is that their kids won't get as much attention in the local schools, because the focus will be on teaching the ESOL kids English and bringing up the performance of kids who may come from backgrounds where not as much emphasis is placed on education. So the prices reflect the fact that some people won't consider it at all, while others will (but only if they've set aside money for private school tuition). Take the same home and stick it in Bethesda, and the price will be higher, even without a lake.
It's the same phenomenon that keeps the prices lower in South Arlington, inside-the-Beltway Annandale, and the Mount Vernon area of Fairfax County. It also used to affect prices in Central Arlington, where some people avoided homes in the Washington-Lee district when there were more garden apartments in Arlington and that school had a higher percentage of lower-income Hispanics. Not exactly rocket science.
I have no idea whether the area will improve or degrade in the coming years. If the Columbia Pike corredor in South Arlington and Falls Church were redeveloped, that would clearly be a positive development for the area, at least in terms of aesthetics. If Culmore were turned into expensive townhouses like you find in parts of Rosslyn and Court House now, that would certainly change the local dynamics, too. Conversely, it's possible that some of the local schools could reach a "tipping point," in terms of their student demographics, which could deprive the schools of families that have the time and ability to get actively involved in their kids' educations.
As an aside, I recall seeing this YouTube video about Stuart's football team a few years ago, which tells you a bit about the character of some of the kids who live in that area and some of the challenges they've faced (which often are a bit more vexing than deciding on a new cell phone or a prom dress):
JEB77's comments brings up some interesting points. The changing demographics of the area has always fascinated me, and I'll provide some insight into N Arlington that might be relevant to Lake Barcroft. Carlingtonian might find some of this interesting.
When I was growing up in Arlington (older gen Y era) in the 80s and 90s, over half of the neighborhood kids in the southern part of the W-L district went private (usually St. Albans, Sidwell, Georgetown Day, WIS, etc.). And there were very, very few middle class kids in North Arlington with the declining enrollments in the inner suburbs all over DC. The county at one point planned to consolidate Yorktown into W-L. I had friends at B-CC HS in Bethesda in the 90s, and that school, with increasing socio-economic diversity and a declining middle class population, also scared off a number of families who could afford to go private. (The nickname for rival Whitman HS was "White Man.") The northern part of the W-L HS district always stayed relatively popular because of the stronger school pyramids far away from the run down garden apartment neighborhoods. Taylor Elem, McKinley Elem, and Swanson Junior High School did not experience the dramatic population shifts at schools like Long Branch, Clay, Barrett, Key, Glebe, and TJ in the southern parts of N Arlington that had an increasing number of poor immigrants from SE Asia and Central America.
Now many of those rundown garden apartments are gone, and Metro-adjacent gentrification has reversed any perceived decline in N Arlington and Bethesda. Over the past 15 years families have been flocking to the inner suburbs, and schools like B-CC, W-L, Montgomery Blair, etc are once again promoted in those tacky/slick real estate ads. Because of the current population increase of well-to-do kids, parents are complaining that their kids are being cut from varsity sports teams. Both Yorktown and W-L are currently exploring options to offer more intramural and club sports. Another symptom of N Arlington's popularity is this Monday's crash of the server that handles the online registration for the Dept of Park's activities/enrichment classes for kids this spring. The county is also planning to convert more park space to soccer fields, because the youth soccer program continues to balloon.
Doing some historical research a year ago, I found a WPost article on the year W-L won the US DOE Blue Ribbon award in 1985. In addition to the school's academic accomplishments, the article mentioned the school's diversity which at 65% white was then the most diverse in the DC area. Roughly 25% of the school were Hmong and Vietnamese immigrants. They primarily lived in the run-down apartments complexes in Rosslyn, Courthouse, Clarendon, Ballston, and Buckingham. Just three years before, when Sandra Bullock was a student, the school was still largely homogeneous and pretty much all-white except for a small black population. It wasn't until the mid-90s that the trend of middle-class "white" flight began to reverse in N Arlington.
Like JEB77, I wonder if the area around Lake Barcroft will ever undergo a very thorough gentrification similar to Bethesda, N Arlington, and dtown Silver Spring. I've heard stories about JEB Stuart being one of the preppiest and most accomplished high schools in Fairfax County back in the 60s-70s. Maybe if that light rail line is built along route 7, then Bailey's XRoads, 7 Corners, and Lake Barcroft will see a similar renaissance. Who knows... in 20 years Centreville could be down-and-out and Baileys/Barcroft the most popular 'hood in Fairfax County.
I think what it underscores is that suburban areas, just like urban areas themselves, evolve over time and that people who have fixed ideas of particular areas or the schools assigned to those areas may find themselves operating on dated assumptions.
Obviously, where the Lake Barcroft area is concerned, the big difference compared to Bethesda, North Arlington or downtown Silver Spring is that there's no Metro in the immediate area (the East Falls Church station is near Seven Corners, but there hasn't been a lot of new residential development around the station). However, infrastructure improvements along either Route 7 or Columbia Pike could have a meaningful impact on the area in the future.
I don't see the W-L district touted regularly in local real estate ads, only the Yorktown HS district, but then again references to school districts in real estate listings are not exactly what I'd consider a "leading indicator" of local trends or underlying school quality. I tend to view it as a possible red flag that the realtor feels a need to compensate for some other problem with the house itself.
I don't see the W-L district touted in local real estate ads, only the Yorktown HS, but then again references to school districts in real estate listings is not exactly what I'd consider a "leading indicator" of local trends. The key take-away is that, if the other local amenities are there, people will indeed "flock" to a school district that, by objective local standards, is squarely in the middle of the pack, and then not hesitate to call it "excellent" - which seems to demonstrate that most, if not all, area schools really are pretty good, people who spend a lot of money on houses tend to speak highly of their assigned schools, or both.
I was referring to the Sun Gazette real estate ads that mention Mckinley, Taylor, Science Focus, Swanson Middle and W-L HS. More recently I've seen ads that mention the Long Branch, TJ Middle, and W-L pyramid (one ad in last week's paper), and the Glebe, Swanson, W-L pyramid. Local upscale builders like Tradition Homes that build heavily in the W-L district, understandably prop up W-L in their brochures.
You're right that it's a mix of amenities and attractive neighborhoods that help a school's reputation outside of its academic accomplishments. I think that's one reason why W-L never gained the "ghetto" reputation back in the 90s that has long burdened Wakefield. That and the fact that unlike at JEB Stuart or Wakefield, W-L always had a group of feeder schools that remained largely white/affluent and homogeneous so it's scores were always higher than its poorer neighbors. Another factor is that W-L had that long tradition of very strong academics and high scores from the 1940s-80s, so even in the 90s when the school's scores began to dip, it's reputation never disappeared from memory. Its long, established reputation is one reason why the school was not considered for closure back in the 80s. Ann Broder and the other school board members voted to close Yorktown, which had only been around for a couple of decades. I don't know the whole story but at the last minute Yorktown was saved.
Back when I was in high school, before the school system's more liberal transfer policies, there were many kids in the Wakefield district who would use a N Arlington address of a relative or friend in order to attend W-L and Yorktown. Now, because of the overcrowding at W-L, there are many Wakefield students who transfer to Yorktown within the transfer rules now in place. Hopefully when the new Wakefield is built and with the improvements along Columbia Pike that school's reputation will improve. Overall, Arlington schools have a very good reputation, so I don't see a S Arlington "renaissance" as that far-fetched.
Now to pick on Marshall HS(mid-late 90s era): there was this transfer student in my 11th grade US/VA history class at W-L who had attended Marshall the previous two years. He said Marshall was a terrible school, very "ghetto." I'm sure he was exaggerating for effect, but what is interesting is that Marshall HS has one of the best reputations in Fairfax County today. I guess my point is that schools and reputations change over time. In ten/fifteen years Wakefield could be a very different school.
Now to pick on Marshall HS(mid-late 90s era): there was this transfer student in my 11th grade US/VA history class at W-L who had attended Marshall the previous two years. He said Marshall was a terrible school, very "ghetto." I'm sure he was exaggerating for effect, but what is interesting is that Marshall HS has one of the best reputations in Fairfax County today. I guess my point is that schools and reputations change over time. In ten/fifteen years Wakefield could be a very different school.
The concept of what passes for "ghetto" in a majority or plurality white and affluent school district such as Fairfax or Arlington can be pretty fluid as well. Maybe it varies depending on just how sheltered a life someone has led up to a particular point in time.
In the 70s, my neighborhood was redistricted from a school that actually deserved the moniker "lily white" to a school that was roughly 10-12% African-American. I can recall that my new school was sometimes referred to as "ghetto," even though it was also over 80% middle and upper-income white at the time, a far higher percentage than any high school in Fairfax or Arlington County today. I survived that (not very) harrowing experience, which sometimes entailed direct contact with students who lived in apartments. More recently, I've heard kids describe a school as "ghetto" simply because a lot of the kids listen to rap music. It appears to be a term of endearment, with few of the negative side effects that can come from actually being consigned to live in a dangerous neighborhood with few opportunities.
In the case of the refugee from Marshall who sought asylum at W-L in the 90s, the newcomer's remarks do sound a bit like "Straight Out of Pimmit" talk. There's no doubt, however, that the school's test scores and overall buzz improved after additional expensive housing was built in Vienna and Dunn Loring that fed into the school. Much of that construction began in the early 90s and attracted young families, so it took a while for the students to hit high school age. In that regard, it's not totally different from what's now occurred in parts of Arlington, although the percentage of low-income students at W-L (32%) is still more than twice as high as the percentage now at Marshall (15%). Some posters will tend to speak unfavorably of schools in Fairfax with similar poverty rates to W-L (West Potomac and Edison), but W-L seems to get better "press" on local message boards, whether due to the school's proud traditions, the keen enthusiasm of Arlington residents, new and old, for their local institutions, the appeal of the school's relatively new building and/or other factors you could probably identify. My bottom line is that, if it was good enough for the triumverate of you, Warren Beatty and Sandra Bullock, W-L would surely be good enough for me or my kids.
In the case of the refugee from Marshall who sought asylum at W-L in the 90s, the newcomer's remarks do sound a bit like "Straight Out of Pimmit" talk. There's no doubt, however, that the school's test scores and overall buzz improved after additional expensive housing was built in Vienna and Dunn Loring that fed into the school. Much of that construction began in the early 90s and attracted young families, so it took a while for the students to hit high school age. In that regard, it's not totally different from what's now occurred in parts of Arlington, although the percentage of low-income students at W-L (32%) is still more than twice as high as the percentage now at Marshall (15%). Some posters will tend to speak unfavorably of schools in Fairfax with similar poverty rates to W-L (West Potomac and Edison), but W-L seems to get better "press" on local message boards, whether due to the school's proud traditions, the keen enthusiasm of Arlington residents, new and old, for their local institutions, the appeal of the school's relatively new building and/or other factors you could probably identify. My bottom line is that, if it was good enough for the triumverate of you, Warren Beatty and Sandra Bullock, W-L would surely be good enough for me or my kids.
W-L’s rep has been tied to the overall affluence, then and today, of N Arlington. N Arlington, even when the commercial areas and garden apartments near metro were rundown and outdated, always had an upscale reputation. I’m sure the “N” in North Arlington has a lot to do with it. The Washington Golf & Country Club also added to that aura. The proximity to DC. Warren and Shirley. The larger houses. The houses south of Rt 50 tend to be smaller than those to the north. The drive along N Fillmore street from Lyon Park into S Arlington across Rt 50 shows that quite well.
More specifically, W-L's reputation back in the mid 90s had a lot to do with boosterism from the upscale neighborhoods that straddled Lee Highway, along the Potomac, and near Swanson Jr High that had the most stable feeder school pyramids. These families were attracted to the stellar rep of W-L in the 70s and 80s, and were for a time oblivious to the changing demographics and problems in the rundown garden apartment complexes of N Arlington near the Metro. By the late 80s, when the not so pretty underbelly of N Arlington was beginning to show, Lee Gardens (near Ft Myer and Pershing Dr.) had become one of the most notorious neighborhoods in Arlington if not DC. The place was scarier than Culmore ever was. In the 90s, the superintendent proposed transferring Wakefield’s poorest neighborhoods to W-L and W-L’s poorest and most upscale neighborhoods to Yorktown. It seemed like a done deal until the influential and wealthy W-L parents protested the move of their neighborhoods to Yorktown HS. So W-L largely survived that battle intact, and Yorktown grudgingly had its first encounter with socio-economic diversity.
The 90s were an interesting time in Arlington to say the least. Today’s N Arlington problems pale in comparison. Overcrowding because of all the largely affluent families moving to the area should set up another interesting boundary battle. It’s been almost twenty years since the last one. Will W-L survive this round? Maybe Wakefield will come out on top? On the other hand, the School Board at the moment seems uninterested in any boundary changes.
More on point, Vienna, where NewArrival is now considering to purchase, is indeed an excellent part of Northern Virginia, and the schools are pretty good. It has not had such a colorful past, however, so there’s not much to discuss.
JEB77, you forgot alums Forrest Tucker and Gena Rowlands. They helped carry the school’s rep through the 50s, lol.
Another case of the term "ghetto" used as an adjective.
My FFX CO high school hosted a huge band competition a few years ago. We were charged with transporting the bandmembers to and from the competition and their hotels.
Unfortunately, my (almost new) regular bus was in the shop for maintenance, so I was driving a really old "spare" bus (it would go to the junk yard shortly after).
I rolled up the hotel and a band from inner-city Richmond boarded. I overheard one of the kids say with disgust... "It figures, WE get the ghetto bus".
[quote=Carlingtonian;22114761]Lake Barcroft has always intrigued me somewhat. The houses are large, on beautiful acreage, with mature trees. And the lake itself is a great amenity. So at first glance, it seems natural that the homes there would cost 700K and up. At the same time--and let me state outright that this is debatable--the schools nearby are considered by some (perhaps many) not to be among the best. And the commute to DC is much longer than from areas with a shorter commute and what many would consider to be better schools (Arlington, McLean, Falls Church). So it's a head-scratcher as to why Lake Barcroft homes are so pricey.
Carlingtonian,
Lake Barcroft prices don't seem surprising to me. A waterfront house almost always sells at a substantial premium to an otherwise similar property without waterfront. A lot of people value water views and water access and both are in short supply within reasonable commuting distance of DC. Compared to other waterfront options in the area, Lake Barcroft is not pricey at all. The schools might not be the best and the commute might not be the shortest, but I personally would probably choose waterfront on Lake Barcroft over non-waterfront properties in Arlington, McLean, and Falls Church. I admit that I may be a little unusual, but having good waterfront was the primary factor in why I chose my house. It involved some compromises in other areas, but I have no regrets. I'm not surprised that many people would choose differently, though.
I survived that (not very) harrowing experience, which sometimes entailed direct contact with students who lived in apartments.
Good for you!
Where I grew up the folks "below" us lived in 4 story walkups, instead of an elevator building like ours. Below them were the kids who grew up in the buildings next to the el tracks. Only slightly below us were the kids who lived in the same building, but a 4 person family in a 2BR apt, so they didnt have their own bedroom like I had. Then there were the kids who lived in single family houses - which in brooklyn meant any fee simple one family house - including one attached on both sides. What y'all call a SFH was a "detached house".
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
