Photos by Tod Connell for the Civic Association of Hollin Hills
A home in Hollin Hills.
The land was “heavily wooded and enigmatic,” wrote Charles M. Goodman, an architect, recalling his first impression of the land that has been home to the Hollin Hills community for 75 years.
“It was the kind of land homebuilders avoided,” he said, according to Hollin Hills, Community of Vision, published in 2000. Goodman, an architect likely influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, had been recruited by developer Robert Davenport to pioneer a unique community and design its homes. Goodman envisioned Hollin Hills as a “laboratory” for a new way of life.
Between 1946 and 1971, Hollin Hills became a wooded enclave of around 450 houses on 326 acres about two miles south of Alexandria’s southern border in Fairfax County. Davenport named it “Hollin Hills,” starting at a time when Fort Hunt Road was unpaved and Fairfax County provided few public services.
The plan included winding roads, no hard curbs, gutters or sidewalks and community parks that followed streams. Rejecting the typical suburban bulldozed terrain with a street grid street of right angles and “cookie cutter” houses that most developers championed then, the two entrepreneurs worked with the land, respecting its natural topography, drainage, slopes and trees.
When Bianca Meiklejohn, an early settler, saw the wooded area of her new home, she remarked, “I thought my husband was taking me into the wildest country. There was nothing here.” Frank Lloyd Wright had said, “Let your home appear to grow easily from its site and shape it to sympathize with the surroundings if nature is manifest there, and if not, try and be as quiet, substantial and organic as she would have been if she had the chance.”
Goodman took that approach to heart and designed houses that “fit the land,” not dominate it as was so typical of many subdivision styles then. The Hollin Hills houses are set back from the streets on irregularly shaped, one-third to one-half-acre lots sited at unique angles with vegetative screening offering privacy from neighbors.
Without fencing, each property seems to flow into the next one, making it feel like a large park. Generally, the one-level houses are on flat or low-slope lots and two-level houses on the steeper lots.
“Shaping the structure to fit the site, rather than reshaping and forcing the site to fit the structure, is a defining feature of Hollin Hills,” explains the community’s successful National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), 2013 listing. The 1944 “G.I. Bill” for returning World War II service members provided eligibility for Veterans Administration housing loans with no down payment.
The war effort had produced new building materials and construction methods, which, in part, led to a housing style called “Mid-Century Modern.” The Hollin Hills’ NRHP nomination explains, “A product of the Modern Movement, the buildings were created from standardized plans with prefabricated modular elements and window walls that unite the interior with the outdoors.”
Goodman referred to the style as “contemporary.” The houses have large, light-filled open floor plans and floor-to-ceiling windows oriented to the outdoors. Goodman made bedrooms small and closets minimal because he saw them as purely utilitarian spaces. Roofs are flat, “butterfly,” or lowsloped gables with overhanging eaves so they almost blend into the landscape horizontally. Most houses have outdoor patios and few have garages. The houses’ walls of glass and clean, geometric lines were unsettling to some.
“I first thought the house looked like chicken coops,” said Rebecca Christoffersen, a resident. “I decided subsequently that many of them still look like chicken coops, but I have grown to love chicken coops.” Hollin Hills was the first planned “modern style” community made up entirely of contemporary homes in the Washington area.
Very Green
Landscape architects Lou Bernard Voight, Eric Paepcke and Dan Kiley designed many of the individual properties’ landscapes, accenting the land’s natural features. Their intent was “to blur the boundaries between the private and the public realm, allowing the greenery to wash over the entire neighborhood, enveloping the houses in its embrace,” wrote Dennis Carmichael, a resident.
Virginia Delegate Paul Krizek, who’s still enjoying his childhood home, sees that as an asset. “I like the open architecture with loads of huge windows looking out at the rolling hills, huge trees and our yards’ borders that are mostly invisible and roll into each other. Add to that all of the parks the civic association maintains and of course, so many wonderful people who place a premium on the environment and the unique architecture.”
Another Hollin Hiller Mike McGill concurs, saying, “I just really enjoy living in and experiencing my home and looking out its big windows at all the foliage,
Maintaining the Character
Over the years, many homeowners have built additions. From the outset, protective covenants have sought to ensure that changes protect the basic character of Hollin Hills. The Civic Association of Hollin Hills has a Design Review Committee (DRC) of volunteer residents who provide guidance to homeowners on proposed exterior additions and renovations and determine whether the plans are consistent with the association’s guidelines. The guidelines state, for example, “Unless specifi cally indicated otherwise in this document, all new construction and all alterations that aff ect the visual appearance of any building or structure require approval by the DRC to assure the maintenance of what the covenant refers to as ‘harmony and conformity of external design with existing structures in the subdivision.’ Exterior alterations that are not visible from the street do require DRC approval.
Hollin Hills was designed holistically, and any proposed alterations must be considered in that context.” While controversies do erupt over some proposed changes, most community residents believe the process has worked to preserve the fundamental character of the community. Roger Miller has lived in Hollin Hills since 1954.
“I see the design review committee as a plus, but not everyone does,” he says, joking that some call it the “Design Rebuke Committee.”
“The community remains relatively intact and retains its historic elements due largely to the foresight and willingness of the homeowners to preserve the aesthetic of their community,” notes Fairfax County’s website.
The last section to be built, dubbed by locals as “new Hollin Hills,” has wider streets, curbs, gutters and sidewalks. Some say that for this section, completed in the early 1960s, Fairfax County officials required wider, straight streets to accommodate large emergency vehicles.
The founding visionaries also included community parks. The largest follows Paul Spring Creek. Today, these mostly forested common areas also include Voight Memorial Park, Charles Goodman Park, Brickelmaier Park and McCalley Park. The community has a swim club and tennis courts along Fort Hunt Road.
Elisabeth Lardner and Jim Klein, who moved to the community in 1993 with two young sons, were attracted to the parks and streams where their sons could play, plus “its simplicity of housing design and the houses’ siting for privacy,” says Elisabeth.
Historic Designations
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Interior listed Hollin Hills on the National Register of Historic Places and the state on the Virginia Landmarks Register. The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the Hollin Hills Historic Overlay District in 2022.
The community was eligible for the national and state listings for its architecture, community planning and development. One justification for the federal listing was “the creativity of Robert C. Davenport’s financing and the inventiveness of Goodman’s modern house designs . . . Hollin Hills, and the collaborative partnership of Goodman and Davenport, received national acclaim and international attention as the first planned subdivision to combine novel land planning, modern house and landscape designs and a merchandising plan that required the lots and house designs to be sold separately,” states the nomination.
McGill wrote in the community’s newsletter, “It was Charles Goodman’s achievement, with Robert Davenport, to take his own variant of the modernist style and create a living, breathing neighborhood that still flourishes after more than half a century, accommodating additions to the original homes but retaining its mid-century modern character so well as to qualify for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.”
A Few Negatives
As for the downsides of living there, some complain that it’s not easy to walk to stores, schools and cultural events. The 101 Fairfax Connector bus does go up and down Fort Hunt Road and to the Huntington Metro station frequently. Cliff Bernier and Kyoko Nakamura moved there in 1989.
Bernier says, “The joys greatly outweigh the frustrations. There are a few: The architectural review for house modifications, while entirely necessary to preserve the historic integrity of the neighborhood, can be daunting. Floor-to-ceiling windows can lead to cold rooms and condensation on sills. Storage space is limited.
Deer nibble on our azaleas and raccoons fish in our pond, but we consider these minor costs to pay for living in a park. We like feeling a part of something beautiful and historic, the diverse designs, the landscaping and additions. All these lend a sense of community, art and inclusion that is very special.”
Hollin Hills has received many awards over the years. “Hollin Hills is one of Virginia’s most noteworthy contributions to modern architecture,” noted architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson.
“Hollin Hills has grown from 'oddball experiment' into one of the most beautiful and admired modernist communities in America,” wrote Stephen Brookes, editor of the Hollin Hills Bulletin.
Hollin Hillers agree.
