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Cherrydale Historic District

About

Date: Built

Historic Designation: National Register of Historic Places, May 22, 2003

Current Use of Property : Residential, commercial and institutional uses.

The Cherrydale Historic District is a residential community defined by the highly traveled commercial corridor along Lee Highway, which bisects the community. After the Alexandria County Courthouse was relocated to Arlington in 1898 and a commuter railroad was established in 1906, a period of rapid development transformed Cherrydale, once a rural agricultural crossroads.

The first areas developed were along what are now Lee Highway and North Quincy Street during the second half of the 19th century on property owned by the Schutt family. The first residential subdivision in Cherrydale included 12 lots known as Schutt’s Subdivision, along the north side North 20th Street. Twenty more subdivisions were created between 1905, when Dominion Heights was created; and 1926, when Lee Heights, 6th Addition and Waverly Hills were added.

The commercial corridor also began to grow, beginning in 1869 with the first general store in the area by C.C. Nelson.

The Cherrydale Historic District has 887 properties within its boundary, including 829 single-family dwellings, 27 multiple-unit dwellings, four churches, a school, 22 commercial buildings, two service stations, a fire station and a meeting hall.

The bungalow was one of the most prolific forms of domestic architecture in Cherrydale. The popularity of the bungalow was generated in part by the availability and vogue of prefabricated kit houses or mail-order houses. The largest and best known of the mail-order companies was Sears, Roebuck and Company, which began selling house kits in the mid 1890s. Because Cherrydale was ideally located near several of the Washington and Old Dominion Railway stops, mail-order houses could be easily delivered to the community.

The Craftsman-style bungalow at 1815 Stafford Street, for example, has been identified as a Sears, Roebuck and Company mail-order house that was purchased by Charles and Ethel Taylor for $1,460 in 1929. The model, known as “Sunlight,” provided five rooms and a bath, full-width front porch with hipped roof, exposed rafter ends, and a glazed front door.

Businesses in Cherrydale were generally confined to a single corridor along Lee Highway and Old Dominion Drive. Many of these commercial buildings reflect the Art Deco and Moderne styles of architecture. Historic commercial buildings include the Cherrydale Hardware Store (1936), the Cherrydale Cement Block Company (1935) and the Family Tea House (1946).

One of the largest properties is occupied by the St. Agnes Catholic Church and School, located at 2002-2024 North Randolph Street. Other religious institutions and civic buildings include: Schutt’s Hall, (1908-1916), the Methodist Society (1918-1925), the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire House (1919) and the Masonic Lodge on the second floor of the Cherrydale Hardware Store (1936).

Other notable buildings in Cherrydale include:

The two-story house at 1713 Quebec St. encompasses many of the quintessential Colonial Revival details. It is one of the first examples of poured concrete construction in Cherrydale and is locally known as the Tin Can House because cans, bottles, and rags were placed in the wall structure to reduce the amount of poured concrete that was needed for construction.
The Colonial Revival-style house at 2000 Nelson St., built in 1904, was the home of baseball great Eddie Foster (1888-1937).
The steel-framed Lustron house at 1818 Randolph St. is one of the more unusual domestic buildings in Cherrydale. Eileen Moore and William M. Hill purchased the property and had the Lustron house built in 1949. Typical of Lustron houses, the dwelling is clad in porcelain-enamel panels and has a side-gable roof. The Lustron Company was recognized as one of the best-capitalized and industrialized companies of the period, producing 2,800 porcelain-enameled steel houses.

Architectural Features

The community is primarily made up of single-family dwellings, supported by multiple-family buildings, a park, meeting halls, churches and commercial buildings. Architectural styles include Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Italianate, Gothic Revival, Art Deco, Craftsman, Tudor Revival, Classical Revival, Spanish Revival and Moderne styles. The earliest houses date from the late 19th century to the 1910s and exhibit many of the architectural elements common with the late Victorian era, including multi-gabled roofs, wrap-around porches, stained glass windows, projecting bays and asymmetrical massing.

Overwhelmingly, the residential buildings are constructed of wood frame, although a number of masonry structures exist. The use of concrete, both poured and blocks, for the foundations and even the structural systems was prevalent in Cherrydale by the 1920s. This was largely because of the concrete aggregate and blocks were manufactured locally at the Cherrydale Cement Block Company, owned by Charles Toone.

The Queen Anne style was influential from the 1870s until just after the turn of the 20th century. The majority of the Queen Anne houses in Cherrydale are constructed on brick foundations with wood-frame structural systems and accentuated by corner towers, porches, and bay windows, accented with columns, balustrades and patterned shingles. The Schutt House at 1721 Quincy St. at the turn of the 20th century is one of the most recognizable dwellings in Cherrydale from this early period.
The Italianate style was prevalent from the late 1880s to the 1920s and is marked by bracketed cornices, elongated arched windows, bracketed porch supports, molded window hoods, shallow-pitched roofs and decorative window surrounds. Less ornate examples survive in Cherrydale at 2011-2013 Oakland Street (1900) and 3421 17th Street (1900).
The Colonial Revival style emerged in the early 1880s and Cherrydale’s early development epitomizes the suburban expression of this style. The majority of these Colonial Revival-style homes are constructed on brick or concrete foundations with masonry or wood-frame structural systems. Excellent examples of the early Colonial Revival buildings include the single dwellings at 1713 Quebec St. (1897), 2011 Nelson St. (1900), 4010 N. 21st St. (1900), 2014 Kenmore St. (1900), 2028 Taylor St. (1900), and 2000 Nelson St. (1904).
During the 1910s and 1920s, the bungalow was the most popular building form in Cherrydale. The front-gabled bungalow at 1706 Randolph Street (1910) stands two stories in height on a poured concrete foundation. Similar examples of the bungalow were constructed at 1708 N. Stafford St. (1923), 1821 N. Oakland St. (1927), and 3706 17th St. (1928).
The Colonial Revival-style dwellings of Cherrydale tend to be slightly smaller in scale and form than those of neighboring communities. Another notable distinction is the reduced stylistic ornamentation, a trend that reflected the mass production of domestic dwellings to meet the growing housing needs of the nation’s capital in the 1930s and 1940s. Examples are located at 1609 N. Utah St. (1945), 1625 N. Utah St.(1945), 3622 Vacation Lane (1950), 3615 Vacation Lane (1953) and 3905 Vacation Lane (1953).
Similarly, the one-and-a-half-story Cape Cod buildings of the 1930s and 1940s exhibit the familiar detailing and form commonly associated with the Colonial Revival style. Examples of Cape Cod dwellings are located at 1617 N. Utah St. (1940), 1819 N. Utah St. (1945), 1929 N. Utah St. (1945), and 2007 N. Utah St. (1945).
A distinct architectural style noted only a few times in Cherrydale is the Spanish-inspired houses, which reflected a loose adaptation of features often found on Spanish Colonial Mission buildings constructed in the southwestern United States. One example, located at 1801 N. Taylor St. (1930) features a central entry with an elliptical fanlight flanked by triple-light windows topped by fanlights. Other examples of this style are located at 2009 N. Oakland St. (1918), 1714 N. Taylor St. (1930-1945) and 1817 N. Oakland St. (1937).
The International style of architecture is represented in Cherrydale only minimally. This style, utilizing the building materials rather than applied ornamentation, was popular during the second quarter of the 20th century. The two-story dwellings at 2240 N. Quebec St. (1941), 2244 N. Quebec St. (1941), and 2248 N. Quebec St. (1941) are excellent examples of this style.