On the Friday before Memorial Day, Jane Wilson was outside her house in McLean, planting begonias from Wal-Mart in the warm May sun. Above her hung an American flag, its colors vivid against the bright blue sky.
Despite the noise and dust of construction at Evans Farm, where workmen were just completing work on an iron gate at the entrance from Chain Bridge Road, Wilson was happy.
In January, she and her husband, David Wilson, became residents of a new stone townhouse.
“This is our fourth new house,” she said, “and by far, the best experience with a builder we’ve ever had. There’s just no comparison with the service we’ve had since we’ve been in here.
“Not that there aren’t problems, but they attend to them. It’s almost inconvenient, it’s so fast. They respond to everything,” she said.
And that covers some ground. The Wilsons moved to Great Falls from Houston, Texas, in 1983, and lived in a house off River Bend Road for five years before moving to McLean, where they lived on Aerie Lane off Old Chesterbrook Road.
They moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and then back to another new house in McLean Hundred, on Lewinsville Road, in 1995.
In January of this year, the Wilsons moved again — this time to Evans Farm.
WHY? LOCATION.
“McLean Hundred was far from everything,” said Wilson. “That’s kind of a dead zone, unless you want a car from that auto mile on Route 7.”
Their son, who had attended Great Falls Elementary School and Cooper Middle School, is grown and gone, she said. “We were looking to uncomplicate our lives.”
Originally they thought they wanted a one-level condominium, but instead they chose the smallest and least expensive three-bedroom townhouse offered by Craftmark Homes, the builder at Evans Farm. It has a stone front and green metal roof.
To compensate for multilevel townhouse living, the Wilsons had an elevator put in against the day they might not be able to negotiate the stairs.
But that’s not likely anytime soon. Jane Wilson walks between five and six miles every day, leaving from the elegant black gateway at Evans Farm and hiking through the neighborhoods that surround Lewinsville Park on the other side of Chain Bridge Road.
The Wilsons could have held the price of their townhouse under $1 million, but they chose options that quickly took it over the $1 million mark.
“We upgraded a lot,” Wilson said. “We got ourselves over a million rather quickly.”
EVEN BEFORE UPGRADES are added, the residences at Evans Farm have standard features that go beyond the standard in today’s high-end real estate market, says Chris Kopsidas, Craftmark Homes sales manager.
Kitchen equipment is the highest quality available, bearing brand names such as Sub Zero refrigerators, Viking professional ranges, and Asko dishwashers with hidden controls.
Kitchen counters are marble and granite. All the floors are hardwood.
The staircases are all oak. Wall paneling is genuine, whether it’s cherry or another kind of wood. There is oversized crown moulding in the halls, foyers and “public” first-floor rooms, including living and dining rooms, study and family room. Nothing is veneer, hollow or plated.
The doors on the first floors of the townhomes and single-family residences are 8 feet tall. The ceilings in the condominiums are 10 feet high.
The 14 condos at Evans Farm are intended to be opulent and luxurious, Kopsidas said. “There is nothing else like it. It’s unique to the Washington market,” he said.
An on-site, full-service concierge will be available to residents to make dinner reservations, set up transportation to and from the airport, and arrange for caterers and valet parking for parties.
The neighborhood will be remotely accessed through heavy-gauge, wrought-iron gates with gold flake accents at entrances on Route 123 and Chain Bridge Road.
The Evans Farm homeowners association will handle the landscaping services.
“Our clients aren’t interested in doing a single thing,” Kopsidas said. “They want everything done for them.”
“We are building a neighborhood and community,” said Kopsidas. “It will age timelessly. We want it to be absolutely special.”
Marketing materials describe Evans Farm as “equally convenient to Washington’s power gred and the allure of the countryside.”
He describes it as having a “neotraditional streetscape.”
All the trees have been preserved. Each stone in the exterior wall around the property is being painstakingly fit by hand.
Many of the residents already know one another. They are members of Washington Golf and Country Club in Arlington or River Bend Country Club in Great Falls.
At Evans Farm, he said, “the swimming pool and tennis court don’t appeal. They use the facilities at their local club.”
Many have owned larger and sometimes more expensive homes. “They have a second or third residence elsewhere,” he said. “This might not be their primary residence.”
He describes Evans Farm buyers as people who are “nice, pleasant, down to earth, well-moneyed and unpretentious. They have tremendous respect for each other.”
“They want to simplify their lifestyle but maintain or enhance the level of luxury they are accustomed to,” he said. “They are not interested in square footage.”
If anything, most of the prospects who visit Evans Farm place a cap, not a minimum, on their space requirement, he said.
THE WILSONS’ “FRONT YARD” is about 4 feet by 8 feet. The “back yard” is smaller: a brick patio, completely private, which has a small water feature built into the brick wall.
Here, Jane Wilson separates her pots of flowers according to their preference, with half on the sunny side and half in the shade.
“It’s just so perfect for us,” she said.
“I can sit out here in my robe and have coffee and read the paper. It’s maintenance-free living.”
As the fourth family to move to a community that will eventually comprise 65 townhomes, 45 single-family residences and 14 condominiums, seven in each of two buildings, the Wilsons are helping shape what the builder says will be a unique place to live that builds on “substance and character.”
They started an Evans Farm tradition that requires the last person to move in to hold a wine-and-cheese party for the next new family and invite all the neighbors. There were about 20 people at the last one, Wilson said.
Their unit was one of the first four townhouses to be completed.
It has an upgraded kitchen equipped with built-in slanted racks, where Wilson can slide in the dinner plates.
Over the range top is a decorative sign that reads: “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Wilson says her neighbors are friendly. “It’s a nice, fun group,” she says. “Most of us are home” during the day. “There is always somebody around to visit with,” she said.
Many are empty-nesters with no children at home, but, she said, some families with young children have signed contracts, too.