What's Happening to Vienna?

[Anonymous]

There was a period when many new Arts & Crafts homes were being built in the Town of Vienna that were IMHO rather interesting:

http://franklymls.com/FX7758161

http://franklymls.com/FX7691215

Some of the homes being built there now are just dreadful:

http://franklymls.com/FX7515660

http://franklymls.com/FX7745743

http://franklymls.com/FX7752563

What happened???

[Anonymous]

They all look the same. They're really attractively prices. That same home is priced at 2.5m on Arizona Ave NW. Over a million more.

[Anonymous]

I agree that some of the ones in your second batch are less than attractive, but overall I'm thrilled to see all the in-fill development in places like Vienna, rather than new scorched earth developments (a twig from Home Depot is not a tree!) further out.

(In the interests of full disclosure, I live in a 50-McMansion development in Fairfax that was infilled onto the lots of maybe 10-12 former houses, so I'm somewhere in between. But I'd rather have the nice custom built single-lot property in Vienna...)

[Anonymous]

I think the first house looks cozy and I love the second house's porch and deck. Can't stand the right side of the third house. It looks like it's missing a window or two. The little balcony on the fourth house looks stupid. The fifth house just looks big and cheap.

[Anonymous]

I wish I could teleport into a blissufl future after this horrid architecture phase has finally ended.

Why does any house need 45 different roof peaks?

[Anonymous]

The one on Park St has low grade finishes inside, but is close to Maple, so commands a high price while presenting the "in" architecture of the moment.

This one on Cottage is MUCH nicer inside with a slightly lower price point, but is farther from Maple http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/801-Cottage-St-Sw_Vienna_VA_22180_M69074-21718?source=web

So in Vienna, the style is the arts and crafts/ farmhouse/bungalow/craftsman mishmash tear down and rebuild, but the quality really depends on the builder.

[Anonymous]

We looked at some very nice homes in Vienna; however my problem with Vienna was that you could be looking at a very nice, updated home, but across the street there was a shack that looked like the wind could blow down. You could have a few nice houses on the street, and then you would see a dump with a pick-up truck up on blocks a few doors down. Too many cats and dogs.

I liked the town of Vienna and the schools are supposed to be good, but we ended up on the other side of the river in a larger, more homogeneous neighborhood (meaning the homes were all built around the same time period and had been well kept up as opposed to some newly built and some very old and run down).

[Anonymous]

they look a lot like the boring mcmansions out in the rest of suburbia. only in ashburn, they would be about half the price. Not saying people should be moving to ashburn, just saying the houses are interchangable.

[Anonymous]

I prefer the second list the 2 with the stone

[Anonymous]

Still a little too far out I would rather be inside the betway not having to deal with 66

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We looked at some very nice homes in Vienna; however my problem with Vienna was that you could be looking at a very nice, updated home, but across the street there was a shack that looked like the wind could blow down. You could have a few nice houses on the street, and then you would see a dump with a pick-up truck up on blocks a few doors down.
.

+1

[Anonymous]

Just be aware, the Cottage Street area is not representative of Vienna.

I grew up in Vienna, and kids from the other neighborhoods (down Beulah Road, Lawyers Road, and Hunter Mill) always called the Cottage Street area the Vienna Ghetto. (Not nice, but it is true.)

[Anonymous]

I like arts and crafts/bungalow houses. Those houses are what happens when a developer tries to mimic a trend, but doesn't want to give up square footage. They took a bungalow and stuck a McMansion second floor on the top. The proportions are all wrong (imho for all of them, not just the second list).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like arts and crafts/bungalow houses. Those houses are what happens when a developer tries to mimic a trend, but doesn't want to give up square footage. They took a bungalow and stuck a McMansion second floor on the top. The proportions are all wrong (imho for all of them, not just the second list).

A purist might prefer a 1920s Sears bungalow in Del Ray or Kensington (the McHouse of its era) to all of these houses, but they appeal to a niche market. Most modern families want more space. That's why there's been such an active market for the larger Craftsman houses in Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Arlington, McLean and Vienna in recent years.

[Anonymous]

A truly intelligent builder would build a Craftsman or Colonial style house with square footage somewhere between 1915 and 2005. "But people want big!" all of them? Surely there are other people like my husband andme who wouldn't mind a new house that isn't the Goodyear blimp of lot eating houses. Mickey Simpson, I'm looking at you!