When the Reston developer was tired of the indirect access of the Roundhouse they moved the sales offices to the Eblock. The first rental apartments were offered in the Heron House, a fifteen story building which was probably the first Virginia high rise outside of the beltway. It was the image setting landmark.
Reston Virginia, the country’s first contemporary and most highly publicized planned community and experiment in seeking alternative to the bland, unconnected suburbs of America opened a sales pavilion known as the Roundhouse on the hill side land now occupied by the Crescent Apartments. This sales office had a number of displays which were montage of the media attention. This experiment made the covers of Life, Time and Look magazines, classy influential chronicles of taste.
These montages also included copies of the coverage in the country’s big name journals such as The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Washington Post. These exhibits were mounted on 20”40 plywood frames. These exhibits migrated from a garage to an activist. They were last shown at the celebration of Reston, organized by the Reston Association but unfortunately were not retained.
The Roundhouse sales office offered the row of townhouses, located on the west side of the Plaza extending from a small two story office building to the Baptist Church, referred to as the Eblock. This group included five townhouses. The northern end was 1600 Washington Plaza West which adjoined the bank building. The occupants of this group have played a very important role in the evolution of Reston as a viable community which will be described in this document.
In 1967, this property was selected by KRS Associates to house their newly formed planning consulting firm. This was the first nonresidential office used in the Lake Anne Village . KRS Associates was later able to sublet space to a number of tenants, including providing space for a large California based engineering firm (SCS Engineers) to establish an East Coast office, and also a temporary office for the Reston Times.
When the developer was tired of the indirect access of the Roundhouse they moved the sales offices to the Eblock. The first rental apartments were offered in the Heron House, a fifteen story building which was probably the first Virginia high rise outside of the beltway. It was the image setting landmark.
Reston Land used the space to accommodate the rental office. The round contemporary Eames table was the location for the meeting that led to the formation of the Connection Newspaper. Also, formation of a consortium of a number of the Reston based design firms, the (CCD) Corporation for Community Development, which has completed projects from Maine to Hawaii .
The Reston Land Corporation sales office was the starting point for a large and growing number of Reston devotees and activists who began to occupy other units in the Lake Anne Village and began to purchase and occupy them. Other townhouses in the Eblock were later occupied by other professional firms including: KDA Architects and Planners, and several attorneys. One unit became the American home of Trans Ocean Bridge, an importer of European kitchenware, including a line of colorful place settings called Rita ware, still found in many Reston kitchens. Ritabolle went on to form Reston Lloyd, which just recently celebrated its 35th anniversary.
The developer also offered Hickory Cluster units for rent, the author’s first choice. When the sales were complete for the initial inventory the sales office was rented to by Jeffery O. Wellborn who was the first broker focusing on re-sales in this new community. His firm became the incubator for a large number of Reston brokers, many still active.
The Reston Land sales office was later relocated to a new building at the edge of the Lake Anne parking lot, now occupied by ASBO. The sales office building had a breezeway maintaining the clear view of the Plaza from the roadways which was later enclosed blocking this vista. Later occupants of this space included the Reston Times and the first offices of Davis Carter Architects. This building and the bank building were owned fee simple and are not part of the condo. Some of the parking has cross easements relative to its control. All of the occupants of the starter block of Restonopoly have been making a major contribution to Reston ’s future mentioned.
The ownership and control of the parking will have an impact on the village center future. When attempting to promote reconfiguration of a couple of the units in the J to accommodate the needs of a prospective tenant. I learned after considerable inquiries, that this group of properties were owned by an investment group as a tax shelter. They were unwilling to contribute more capitol to the reconfiguration and did not want the property to generate income because it compromised the tax shelter structure which did not want to profit from the higher rent after reconfiguration.
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