This is an aerial view of Country Club View in 1967. A lot has changed in 50+ years! Photo courtesy of Don Weber, long-time resident of Country Club View.
CCV Newsletter December 2018
Country Club View – A History (Part I)
Sherrie Brady, CCVCA Welcome Committee Chair
Bea Stephenson is an original owner of her CCV house on Portsmouth Road. She and her husband, Jack, bought it in May of 1968, and she lives there still, an active great-grandmother. Her CCV story includes the care and nurture of her husband and two sons, and it includes neighborhood events that proved to forever shape their lives.
Bea served on the CCV Executive Committee for 48 years in several different capacities, mostly as Secretary and the Women’s Club representative. During those 48 years the civic association had several confrontations with adjacent neighbors and with the county. “The first thing we fought was the pool,” she says. “They wanted to put the pool back there in the CCV park. That’s a flood plain. And, of course, the neighbors right there around it didn’t want the pool in their back yard.” So, as a result of the efforts of a united civic association the pool, Sideburn Run Pool was constructed on the other side of Zion at Concordia.
The next battle involved the property where Salvation Army is now located. Presbytery, the governing body of the Presbyterian Church, owned that property and had plans to construct a church there. They had even designed and purchased a house at Buckingham and Portsmouth to use as a manse for the Pastor and his family. Once he established a congregation, however, the Pastor decided that the seven acres that Presbytery owned should be used for public housing. Bea says, “Well, everybody was very much against that because at the time we had no busses, no shopping center … no way of people getting anywhere. And so we really fought that. C603 was the county designation.” Petitions were signed and many CCV residents went to the courthouse for the hearing, the result being that the public housing was not built.
Around the same time as the hearing was the tornado, “maybe 1972.” All the petitions were on a CCV resident’s dining room table. She lost the top floor of her house on Gadsen, but the petitions were spared. A few doors down from her a woman had left her wedding rings on her dresser. The rings were never found. “It took the top off that house also.” The tornado “came through the park, and that’s how we ended up with the park because that was all trees before. All the trees came down with the tornado. The county owned that land but they didn’t have a park there until the tornado came through.”
Other civic association challenges included the construction of University Mall (“We didn’t want it, but of course it’s been handy since it’s been there.”), and the Exxon station (“It was in the agreement originally that they would not sell beer.”). And GMU tried to build power lines on the CCV side of Braddock Road (“We finally won that battle.”)
But our own Bea Stephenson was there through it all, signing petitions, going to hearings, having her say. She was active and vocal in support of her home and her family in Country Club View. Thank you, Bea, for all you did to make CCV the wonderful neighborhood it is today.
CCV Newsletter March 2019
A CCV History – The Weber Family
Sherrie Brady, CCVCA Welcoming Committee Chair
Once upon a time there was a young couple newly transferred to Northern Virginia by the US Navy. This young couple had friends who lived in the Middleridge neighborhood, and these friends knew of wonderful homes for sale just across the way in Country Club View.
“Yes,” said the realtor, “but are you looking for a neighborhood . . . . Where children can walk to school, and even to university? Where a park is available right in the middle of the community? Where church is within walking distance? Where shopping is within walking distance? Where two gas stations are easily accessible? Where a community pool is within walking distance? Which has an express bus to the Pentagon? Then, yes, you may find a suitable home in Country Club View.”
And that is how Don and Marie-France Weber along with their seven children (ages 2 months to 15 years) found a home in Country Club View in 1986. Dozens of houses were for sale which were going fast. The market was booming. The family chose a house on Concordia and quickly settled into the neighborhood.
Marie-France volunteered to be a Block Captain with Don as her trusty assistant. Don joined Neighborhood Watch and later agreed to chair the Schools Committee. Over the years Don also volunteered as CCVCA Treasurer, 2nd Vice President (several times), and 1st Vice President. They have also been church volunteers during their time in CCV. Don was a church leader for 14 years, first as bishop (leader) of the Fairfax Ward (congregation) and then as a counselor in the Annandale Stake (area) presidency. He also served as scoutmaster for seven years. Among other service, Marie-France was a leader in the children’s auxiliary. Marie-France and Don accomplished all this while overseeing the busy school schedules of their children who in addition to attending class were involved in athletics, the arts, early morning seminary, and part-time jobs.
The Weber’s experienced several neighborhood changes during those family years. The Mobil station near University Mall morphed into a Sunoco station, and the Mobil training center behind it became a gym. (That building was torn down when University Mall was renovated 2016). Power lines were installed to the satisfaction of GMU and CCV along Braddock Road after residents were bussed to Richmond to testify to a state committee. Target was built at Guinea and Roberts after much community controversy about its location and the re-routing of roads.
Don and Marie-France are now thinking of how best to spend their years of retirement. Don is planning a challenging bike trip across the entire country with his son, Matt. They will bike the entire Trans-America Trail from Yorktown to Astoria, 4300 miles. Marie-France may enjoy her new freedom by traveling to visit family and overseeing the construction of a new home in Colorado, or she may enjoy doing nothing for a while.
Thank you, Don and Marie-France, for the time and talent you shared with neighbors of Country Club View. Your many years here, 1986-2019, were a gift to us all.
CCV Newsletter March 2019
Local History Corner
Catherine Mortensen, CCV Resident
Our beautiful Country Club View neighborhood was once farmland owned by Dr. Frederick Brooks who died without heirs in 1941. Brooks left his home and land to his housekeeper, Mary Kidwell, who had run the farm side of his business for many years. The Brooks farmhouse was located on a small bluff on what is now Ames Road.
Fairfax resident Lee Hubbard, born in 1935, grew up just a few miles south of the Brooks farm and knew the Kidwell family well. When Lee was a teenager, he says Kidwell’s husband would hire young men from the area to thin the corn on the farm. After Mr. Kidwell passed away, Mrs. Kidwell would let other people farm sections of their land. Lee’s family, who grew corn and wheat on their nearby property, planted corn in the early 1960s on the Brooks Farm, in the area where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints building is now. Lee says almost all the land that is now Country Club View was flat farmland, except for the wooded area near Sideburn Road. Across Ox Road, the Country Club golf course was once the Haight dairy farm. According to Lee, there were once 72 dairy farms in Fairfax County and the main commerce artery for dairy was the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad. Its oldest line extended from Alexandria on the Potomac River northwest to Bluemont at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Snickers Gap, not far from the boundary line between Virginia and West Virginia.
Lee says Mary Kidwell’s grandchildren inherited the Brooks farm and sold it to developers beginning in the mid-1960s. He says the first parcel of land sold off from the family farm was the land where the Ox Road Exxon now stands at the corner of Ox Road and Zion.
Lee has a lot of interesting stories of our area, including stories of U.S. Army troops who came down Ox Road on convoys headed for training in the Shenandoah Mountains. He says one time the convoy crossed a bridge in front of St. Mary’s church and the bridge collapsed under the weight of the convoy. He remembers the date as June 4, 1944. The soldiers knew the bridge wasn’t that stable, so only one truck was allowed to cross at a time. They replaced it with a temporary bridge until 1948 and in 1948 they moved Ox Road behind St. Mary’s church and put a new doublewide bridge in.
He says during WW II the U.S. government had a German prisoner of war camp near Lee Highway and Shirley Gate Road. Local farmers could “check out” POWs as day laborers on their farms. Lee says his father picked up two POWs to help on Mrs. Kidwell’s property. “They had a lousy looking lunch with them and my dad invited them into our house for lunch,” Lee explained. “I held up a knife to them and one soldier said, ‘messer,’ (knife) and a glass of water and said ‘vasser’ (water). He was teaching me German,” Lee added. “They were pleasant to me. I knew of one German POW who stayed, he was an officer, he came back to U.S. and married a girl from around here.”
Lee went on to serve as police detective in the Fairfax Police Department. He still lives in our area and may be willing to come share more stories with our neighborhood group in the future.