The Early Years in Pine Spring, as remembered by Yves & Frances Maroni
Yves and Frances Maroni were original homeowners in Pine Spring, and lived here until 2003.
In the beginning, Pine Spring residents were mainly young couples with young children, and it was not long before they organized a baby-sitting club. The members sat for each other, and the mothers took turns keeping records, making sure that families did not build up excessive credit or debit balances.
Milk was delivered to our doors by a milk company, whose milk boxes sat outside the houses, and a truck showed up regularly, selling eggs and farm produce. A Good Humor truck came through every afternoon in season, selling ice cream to the children.
All of our homes were given new addresses in 1965, when a uniform county-wide street numbering system was adopted.
Over the years, many of the houses were enlarged or modified in various ways, but in three cases the modifications were made necessary by fire. In two of these, 7604 Seoane Court and 2919 Pine Spring Road, the fire did enough damage to require a substantial rebuilding of the houses. In the third case, 3000 Pine Spring Road, the damage was less severe and repairs less extensive.
2901 Pine Spring Rd., mid 50's
For many years, civic association meetings were well attended. They were held in the Pine Spring School cafeteria, and usually featured a program with a guest speaker. Standing committees worked on hospitality and membership, education and recreation, publicity, community improvement, and governmental affairs. Each year, when the time came to elect new officers, the nominating committee was expected to propose two nominees for each office, so that there would be a contest for each one.
An early project was to have the community grounds treated against Japanese beetles, which were prevalent in the area. The residents paid a modest fee to get rid of this pest.
For a brief period in the mid-fifties, a bus line came into Pine Spring from Lee Highway. The bus would go south on Pine Spring Road, turn left on Willow Lane, and leave through Meadow View Road. This caused quite a stir and a large majority of residents voted at a civic association meeting to ask the bus company to keep its buses out of the community.
In 1957, a company proposed to build a warehouse on the south side of Route 50, directly across from Pine Spring. The civic association president and several residents spoke in opposition to this proposal at a meeting of the Board of Supervisors, following which the Board denied the requested rezoning.
The Melpar laboratory occupied what is now the Raytheon plant, and, at first, there was a 300-foot buffer strip between them and us. As Melpar grew, however, it needed more parking spaces and it sought County permission to amend its site plan. Despite vigorous Pine Spring opposition, Melpar won the right to shrink the buffer strip to only 90 feet and to build a driveway into the expanded parking lot in what had been the wider strip.
When the Pine Spring Village apartments were built north of the Pine Spring school, the civic association was instrumental in getting a strip of land at the eastern edge of the tract dedicated as a park, to serve as a buffer between our community and the new apartments.
In the early days, the land now occupied by Loehmann’s Plaza, the apartments adjoining it on the west, the Public Library, and the next group of apartments was an airfield for small planes, which flew over Pine Spring as they prepared to land. Before the present public library was built, the library was housed in a building north of Route 50.
Until 1967, Falls Church High School was on Hillwood Avenue, and the present high school, built around 1960, was an intermediate school. In 1967, it was enlarged and became the high school, and the intermediate grades moved to the Hillwood Avenue school.