Caddyshackpocalypse Now: With New Golf-Friendly Charm Offensive, War Horse Proves It's a Two-Trick Pony

Hey, remember that time a friendly sounding company bought the Reston National Golf Course and immediately said that there was nothing that could be done but raze it because no one is playing golf any more, and then they became Very Concerned about the scourge of invasive plants, and then they hosted an open bar to propose a "conservancy" sort of green space that would be "reclaimed from golf course use," and when no one bit on any of these highly sincere gambits that had nothing to do with turning their $23 million investment into $200 million-plus worth of particleboard condominiums, they started arguing about by-right development, threatening to reduce the course to 9 holes and maybe build some brightly lit Top Golf-like mauvescraper to annoy their tormentors, and then later claiming that a mildewed 1966 zoning document allows them to build whatever they want on 14 acres of the golf course?

Yeah, that was awesome. But now, we're hearing that golf is BACK, baby! The developers' latest charm offensive, if by "charm offensive" you mean "posting a bunch of geotargeted ads on Facebook," is leaning heavily into golf, promising Restonians "golfing bliss" on 18 pristine holes, conveniently surrounded by new "much needed homes." Check it, as the kids haven't said in years:

"Teed off" is telling on their less-than-warm response from Restonians to date a little, but no matter! Bask in the vision for "Evolution 18," which was definitely not generated by AI slopbots working hard enough to drain nearby Lake Thoreau:

One part seems accurate, though. COMPUTER, ENHANCE:

Perhaps we're being cynical. Maybe their altruistic commitment to addressing the housing crisis is the real motivator:

That means some pretty dense development -- some 306 stacked townhomes, including between 18 and 34 workforce housing units, depending on who you ask. Enjoy these lovely before and after renderings from their website (circles are ours):

We like how the "after" image has been yassified, as the kids said as recently as two years ago. But no matter! In describing the changes, the developers are basically saying that they're doing golfers a favor, and the bolted-on housing should be our way of saying "thank you" for a new "Back 9 grill" between the 12th and 13th holes and a "short course," whatever that is. Give us some good golfing blockquote, BFFs at Fairfax Now:

According to [War Horse Cities founder and Reston National owner Scott Plank], the renovations will amount to “millions of dollars of work,” and allowing housing on a portion of the property will enable War Horse to fund the project without passing on the costs to players by increasing fees or fully privatizing the course.

SAY THANK YOU, PEONS.

All of this is teeing off (get it?) a September 23 planning commission meeting on the portion of the property War Horse says it has the right to develop anyway.  

Will all this work? Earlier this summer, the Reston Association asked residents if they wanted it to continue pushing back against development, with 91 percent urging the RA Board to continue its opposition. (No word if the remaining 9 percent rooted for Ted Knight's character in Caddyshack). But we worry that without continuing advocacy from those who oppose it, the constant shifting of the goalposts, the new promise to ostensibly give the complainers what they want and preserve the golf course, and, of course, the county's unquenchable desire for some sweeeeeeet sweeeeet tax revenue that isn't a data center are going to be, as the golfers say, quite the handicap when push comes to shove for the supervisors who don't have to live with this in their own back nine, the end.

Flashback Monday: Reston Design, By The Book

V. v. exciting news for lovers of antique design trends, like "books." Our favorite correspondent: The Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston, discovered that a 1960s-era book on home decorating included an entire section on mid-century modern design, all devoted to Reston and fancy New York City designer J. Frederic Lohman, A.I.D.! Knock us over with an earth-toned feather, and "peep," as the kids certainly no longer say, these cool photos from one of Reston's earliest model homes which Lowman furnished with all the special touches, some more special than others:

Without rabbit ears, that fancy big-screen-for-the-1960s teevee would be about as good as picking up (all four) DC TV stations as the fillings in your teeth. But we have to admit, those storage units are pretty sweet, even though it looks like the one in the middle is being used to store an upside-down chandelier. COMPUTER, ENHANCE:

But wait, there's more!

Save for the regrettable throw pillows (and thank goodness these photos are in black and white, lest we be blinded by a rainbow of burnt oranges and mauves), the decor is shockingly tasteful, though we bet those scoliosis-shaped chairs were incredibly uncomfortable. And that inverted chandelier is apparently sentient and reproducing. COMPUTER, ENHANCE:

But this "book," it turns out, has words in it, too, and The Peasant took the time to read them! Here's what it said:

There is no way mid-century modern can compete with the refined style of the swinging 1970s that once defined exquisite taste in our beloved New Town -- shag carpets! pink bathrooms! avocado hued kitchen appliances! -- but the furnishings of this Reston house took home design to its highest pinnacle, since as the book put it, the rooms shown are "fine examples of the style, livability, and comfort that can be achieved with modern furniture and furnishings."

Please to note also that in this chapter's short introduction, there is mention that designer Frederic Lohman decorated not just four model homes in Reston but also "the Country Club's clubhouse, the Bottle Club, and the Hospitality Center." We are left wondering what and where, exactly, the Bottle Club was. Did our pioneering forebears, in best Don Draper style, sneak over after a hard day of work to secretly have a snoot or two in such aesthetically pleasing surroundings before returning home to the missus and the little nippers for a tasty TV dinner of Swanson's turkey with all the trimmings? Alas, we shall never know. 

An exhaustive internet search for the "Reston Bottle Club" yielded random restaurants and the top-rated "Purple Glass Recycling Container" (5 stars, IFKYK). 

But wait, there's even more!

We identify with the plant cowering behind the chair in the corner; it's seen some things. But wait--

JUMP SCARE:

Yikes. That's enough old-timey design, and "books," for us for a while, the end.

Reston's Oldest House Isn't in Great Shape, and Neither Are Its Neighbors (Updated)

Sad news. Reston's oldest house -- and the namesake for the nascent community that predated Bob Simon's exurban pipedream -- was walloped by last week's wild storms. Check out the damage to the Robert Wiehle House, posted to the Reston, Remember When group on the Face Books:

Nestled in the trees off Old Reston Avenue between an apartment complex, a townhouse complex, and an exclusive, probably gated community currently being built, the Wiehle House is the oldest extant structure from the planned community of Wiehle. 

Here's a history some filthy "web logger" wrote: 

Not to be confused with Linden Springs or the Bowman House, the Robert Wiehle House is all that's left of the first attempt to build a planned community in the wilds of the Virginia countryside, nearly a full century before Reston was a gleam in Bob Simon's eye. When Carl Adolph Max Wiehle, a doctor from Philadelphia, bought the chunk of land that is now Reston in 1886, he envisioned an 800-home bedroom community, presumably with detailed rules about appropriate burlap window treatments and on-street horse parking. Only 10 houses were actually built, though, and most of them went to family members, and then Wiehle said, "eh, this real estate stuff is hard, let's just get someone to build a distillery instead and get hammered every night," which is exactly what happened until the nudists showed up. 

Apparently no one was hurt in last week's accident, and your Restonian Eyewitness Action On Your Side I-Team(R)(tm) went by the site earlier in the week and witnessed a crew clearing the trees. Hopefully the home will be repaired. But its historic neighbors aren't doing a heck of a lot better.

The 1892 distillery building right next door on Old Reston Avenue (pictured at center of the old-timey photo above) has been on the market for months for a cool $2.5 million. It's definitely what they'd call a fixer-upper, and it's been put up for sale before, but this time, a Realtor(R)(tm) said something a little bit different in their Tic Tac:

"This property was previously approved for condo and townhouse development, but of course, the buyers will have to do their due diligence."

OF COURSE. You can build a lot of townhouses on 0.23 acres, if you do it right. (And by "right," we mean using an industrial press to squeeze them really close together.)

But we digress. Right across the street, where the Bowman House mansion sits, there are the telltale yellow signs of yet another rezoning proposal. Plans for the property have been filed on and off since 2006, but they're now moving ahead. Give us some good zoning blockquote, BFFs at Reston Now:

The Fairfax County Planning Commission on June 3 recommended approval of redevelopment plans for a 5.2-acre Reston site that will retain the historic A. Smith Bowman House as its centerpiece... Plans from developer EYA and the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association (AAFMAA), the property owner, call for razing the association’s existing three-story office building and replacing it with 57 townhouses and two public parks. As part of the development plan, the 19th-century Bowman manor house could remain in its current use as an office, be converted to a community clubhouse, or return to its original use as a single-family home.

 COMPUTER, show us some sweeeet renderings:

Historic! We can only hope the property will be called "Distillery View," or maybe "Distillery View Which Was Previously Approved For Condo and Townhouse Development, But Of Course The Buyers Will Have To Do Their Due Diligence" if that will fit on a sign, the end.

Update: Turns out the Wiehle House is no longer insured, and the owner is seeking help to repair the extensive storm damage. And the 'ole distillery has been put on the "most endangered list" of historic properties by both Fairfax County and Preservation Virginia, due to "the risk of it being lost to development or neglect," and we think we know which one of the two is more likely at this point, the end.

Say It Ain't So, Joe! Chain Closure Shows Revenge is a Dish Best Served With Unlimited Breadsticks

In the most shocking news since the ought-fourteen bombshell that forced us to retire our most popular meme* about the midscale chainification of Reston, Not Your Average Joe's, the perfectly average chainery that replaced our beloved Macaroni Grill, has announced it will close in July. Say it ain't so, Joe!

The Massachusetts-based chain is permanently closing its location in the Spectrum at Reston Town Center on July 15, according to a sign recently posted to the restaurant’s front door.

“We are so grateful to have been a part of your great community,” the sign says. “Thank you for the many wonderful memories and all your support throughout the many years.”

It's been here since ought-sixteen, so a decade is a pretty good run for a chain "concept," we guess. But we know what that soon-to-be-vacant storefront could mean!

We're so back, baby!

Right now, you can only find the Macaroni Grill on the blockchain, or maybe six time zones away (we need to take a tax-deductible Restonian On Your Side business trip to confirm this; we owe you, dear "web log" readers, nothing less). But Barnes & Noble triumphantly returned to Reston after a similar shocking closure, and we've hoped against hope before, so you never know!

* Said meme was never popular, the end.

Sign O' The Times: Lake Anne Unveils New Old Brutalist Signs, With A Dash of Mondrain

Hey, remember the time that Lake Anne Plaza's branding, including a somewhat suggestive sign that looked like it would be more at home in a certain park in Brambleton, was put up for a refresh?  Yeah, that was awesome. Well, it turns out that refresh is back from the branding refresh factory, which took out the vaguely oogy liquids, added some cool blocky elements and a touch of Mondrain, and came up with magic!

BEHOLD:

Cool "colorway," as the design kids might have said, back in design school where people routinely use terms like "colorway." Give us some good Mad Men-esque design blockquote, BFFs at FFX Now:

A concept design unveiled by Streetsense at a virtual meeting swaps the current fountain-oriented logo for a simplified look with blockier font intended to evoke the neighborhood’s 1960s origins and defining Brutalist architecture.

“The logo design took inspiration from midcentury color palettes and forms, including some iconic signs at Lake Anne,” said Jodi Dubyoski, a senior urban designer at Streetsense.

Refined over months based on community feedback, the concept cements a consistent style, while also offering more flexibility through different color options, for example, that can be adapted “to different messaging needs,” she added.

It's getting rave reviews! 

“Functionally, it’s very legible, and it looks [Piet] Mondrian-esque,” said [a community member], referring to the Dutch abstract painter known for his line compositions. 

And, of course, the logo is a nice play on one of our favorite skull-crackin' concrete adornments:

Put it all together, and you get some really nifty signs:

But the proposed placement of the so-called "beacon" signs... confuses us. Check it, as the kids no longer say, whether in design school or not:

Now we're just simple country "web loggers," but we're not sure why these signs would be placed sideways in the medians like this, where they would 1) cause drivers to crane their heads to look at the pretty colors, muttering "very legible, and it looks [Piet] Mondrian-esque" to themselves, brackets and all, as they careen towards a red light at 55 mph and 2) inform the residents of the Fellowship Lake Anne House across the street, residents who presumably know where Lake Anne is, of the location of Lake Anne.

We'd humbly suggest a sign that could be viewed from every angle, and luckily you can find them outside a lot of small-town laundromats (IYKYK, as the kids also no longer say). All they'd need is a small typography fix (and a little bit of Windex):

You're welcome.

Casinopocalypse Never: Developer Denies Interest in Reston, Herndon Casino, Nosiree Bob! (Simon)

 

No one:
Absolutely no one:
Comstock: We never wanted to build a casino in your stupid town anyway.

The fancypants casino bill has been dead (for now) for almost a month, and developer Comstock just issued a public statement saying nosiree, we never thought about building a giant casino entertainment project in Reston or Herndon, why would anyone think that, silly rabbits?

To be fair, Comstock probably felt compelled to issue the statement because an Action McNews teevee story conflated two unrelated events in our neighbor to the west, Herndon. At the same time as town officials were considering tweaking zoning requirements to make it difficult to build a casino there, ultimately deciding to try to simply prohibit them outright, they were dealing with another Comstock-related issue: Herndon is suing the company to get back the land for a fancy downtown development project the company backed out of in 2024. And the teevee people combined the two into one story, as they often do given the limited time between mattress commercials, and hence the public statement.

Give us some good public statement blockquote:

Contrary to what has been reported or speculated, Comstock has never pursued the approvals necessary for a casino development anywhere on the Silver Line outside of Tysons. The reason is straightforward: our concept for what this type of destination development should look like, what it should include, and how it should function is simply not compatible with a residential neighborhood.

Alrighty then! We'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but let's be perfectly clear, as the kids politicians said as recently as a decade ago: While Comstock didn't author it, the language in the original casino bill proposed back in ought-twenty-three by Sen. David Marsden (D-Burke) and Del. Wren Williams (R-Stuart) that Comstock supported included some very specific legalese about the location of any proposed casino that was still somehow nonspecific enough to make both Tysons and Reston possibilities, though that later got narrowed to Tysons (and then expanded back to include just about anywhere) during this year's legislative deliberations. So another company, if not them, could have built it here if that language had held and the bill passed. 

But we're glad that Comstock put their commitment to keep casinos away from residential neighborhoods in writing for all to see. If only some other equine-adjacent developers could do the same thing instead of poking around some moldy sixty-year-old property plats, we'd all be a lot happier, the end.

With Trump Truth Post, Reston Has Finally Arrived

Maybe you thought it was that time Money Magazine ranked Reston the 7th best place to live in the country. Or that time they named a disease and an opera after our plastic fantastic planned community. Or that time we got our fancypants Wegmans before Manhattan (yes, that Manhattan). Or that time the Metro finally arrived and all of our homes one particular penthouse quintupled in value. 

But no. It was only yesterday, May 3, 2026, that Reston finally arrived. That's because that was the day we joined the ranks of Bruce Springsteen, various"low IQ" politicians, Greenland, the Superbowl halftime show, and covfefe. That's right, Reston was at long last the subject of a Trump tweet truth. Check it, as the kids haven't said since well before his first term:

Good to see Fannie Mae getting with the program! Let's check out that inspirational photo greeting employees as they head past the fake harvested timber to the elevator banks. COMPUTER, ENHANCE:

Resisting the urge to make obvious comparisons that would get us put on a list, so haha, good thing it's posted against a russet brown background or the DRB would be awfully sore, haha, the end.