Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 12/06/2006
NRHP Listing Date 03/22/2007
NRHP Reference Number 07000230
The Holmes Run Acres Historic District, a suburban housing development constructed in Fairfax County between 1951 and 1958, was dramatically different from most other housing developments of the 1950s in Northern Virginia. The modern-style dwellings and the design of the neighborhood in Holmes Run Acres marked a departure from the more prevalent colonial-style postwar subdivisions. The developers, brothers Gerald and Eli Luria, created a subdivision with affordable houses that took advantage of the natural terrain by blending into the surroundings. The Lurias hired architects Nicholas Satterlee and Donald Lethbridge to design small, inexpensive, houses consisting of standardized features and modules that made the buildings adaptable to fit the needs of the architects and the homeowners, as well as the landscape and building codes. Influenced by the principles of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian dwellings, the architects designed the houses in a modern style, featuring open plans, plywood panels, fixed glass, and sliding windows. The dwellings in the Holmes Run Acres Historic District, staggered along heavily wooded lots to give maximum privacy, embody a new modernism during a time when the Ranch and Colonial Revival styles were much more popular in most suburban communities nearby.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: March 17, 2023
