A little bit sketchy today but it's only because I want to write about what I heard at a history lecture about Reston and Lake Anne Plaza earlier this evening. The lecture was hosted by Reston Museum and today they had Mr. Simon, Reston Founder, two original engineers and a house salesperson. And it was a great opportunity to listen to them telling what they went through when they built Reston.
Here are some info I learnt.
- Lake Anne was originally located toward east and closer to Lake Fairfax but there was a gas line running in the northeast- southwest direction.
- Lake Anne dam was finished in about 6 months in 1963.
- Reston was designed to have 7 villages accommodating 10,000 people with one grocery store at each location.
- The name of the residential tower is Heron House
- The 2-story mix-use building as you see on my sketch is called "J" building because of the shape of its floor plan.
- The original stores/offices at "J" building were dry cleaner, Safeway, barber, hardware, library and community center. (And a couple more I forgot.)
- Reston is considered historical because of its many "first" not because its age.
- The design started by determining the function, program, building types the town needed. The planners decided what the town should look like and go back to the zoning later. (Almost like it has its own zoning.) It was designed to be a self-contain town.
- Mr. Simon started this project in his 50s and didn't feel the town missed anything especially when the master plan was approved in 14 months.
- The town was designed to be an open community meaning it accommodates people at any ages, races, income levels. Many architects, builders were involved in order to produce various types of housing.
- Everything was built at the same time from houses, amenities, nature trails, etc.
- South Reston was designed for traditional housing which was requested by banks.
- In the beginning of the house sales many people thought the town was for the retired citizen as the name could be read "Rest-on."
- The selling point was you're not buying a house but you're buying a community with amenities. Swimming pools, golf course, courts were included in the original design.
- The early residents received a welcome package including direction, brochure and also a welcome letter signed by Mr. Simon.
- The cooling system was very unique at the time. The A/C pipes were buried at the bottom of Lake Anne to avoid using the individual A/C compressors which would be noisy. However the water in the lake is always too warm to cool anything down.
You can look at photos of Reston through time by clicking here. Or google to read more about it.
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