Great blue on morning lookout. Photo by Fran Lovaas
Lake Anne has always been the heart of Reston for me. We moved to our townhouse on the lake in the winter of 2002 and as we hauled the last box in, it started to snow. Tired and hungry, we wandered down to the plaza and settled ourselves into a corner seat by the window at one of Lake Anne’s special restaurants. As the sun set we ordered the seafood soup and looked out onto the plaza and the lake and watched the snow fall gently—magical...
Every day I marvel at the magic, waking up to a different Lake Anne each morning with the changes of the seasons and years. I greet Bob Simon, in his 100th year, walking on the path in front of our house. I watch the great blue heron as it flies down the lake in the morning to hunt for its breakfast in the shallows. I view a variety of water birds—cormorants, kingfishers, green herons, swifts, mallards, grebes and Canadian geese. I cherish the visits of our grandson as he spends hours looking for frogs, salamanders, crayfish, insects, myriads of fish and turtles (he never tires of the lake). I boat on a serene lake in the early morning or at dusk. I walk our happy, prancing Scottie around the 1 1/2 miles of water. And I practice my amateur painting skills, soothed by the calming sound of the nearby fountain in the lake.
Then there is Lake Anne’s small community feel with wonderful events—concerts, outdoor movies, festivals, wine tastings—and the hugely popular and exciting Saturday mornings with the farmers and crafts markets. We also have restaurants, coffee houses, a used book store, a pharmacy, a contract post office, a museum, a community center, etc. If you don’t know Lake Anne, you don’t know Reston. Its sparkling lake reflects a special community as envisioned in the original plan for Reston.