Lake Anne is Reston’s first village. Robert E. Simon’s company built the lake in 1962 and named it for his wife, Anne. The first families moved into townhouses on its shore in the fall of 1964, and the village center on the lake’s north arm was dedicated on December 4, 1965. Simon spent the last third of his life in Heron House, the tower at the south end of Washington Plaza. Our post on Reston’s seven founding goals covers the goals he set for the town.
Sixty years on, the plaza has a Saturday farmers market, a free history museum, a brewery and a coffee house on the water. Thirty-six of the 37 homes that sold this year in the communities closest to the plaza were built between 1965 and 1972. Prices ran from $150,000 for a one-bedroom condo at Northgate to $2.38 million for a detached house on South Shore Road, according to Bright MLS.
On September 29, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted a plan amendment for the Crescent Apartments property next door. It makes room for the Reston Community Center to move from its plaza storefront into a larger building there.
Washington Plaza runs a farmers market, a museum and a brewery on the water
James Rossant and William Conklin designed the village center in the Brutalist style, a postwar style built from exposed concrete, and Rossant meant it to evoke the Italian harbor town of Portofino. Fairfax County made it a historic overlay district, a zoning layer that protects the buildings inside it, in 1983, and it joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
The Reston Farmers Market sets up in the village center lot every Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon, and its 2026 season runs through November 21. The Reston Museum, at 1639 Washington Plaza North, charges no admission. It also runs the Lake Anne Cardboard Boat Regatta, which raced homemade boats from the plaza docks on August 8.
Lake Anne Brew House, open since 2016, leased the former Chesapeake Chocolates storefront on the plaza to double its taproom, and the expansion was still waiting on a county building permit in August, FFXnow reported. Lake Anne Coffee House & Wine Bar opens at 8 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays and serves dinner Wednesday through Saturday. Café Anne, a few doors from the brewery, cooks Moroccan and Algerian dishes. Kinship Wine + Wares opened this summer at 1635B Washington Plaza North, next to Elden Street Tea Shop. Our coffee shop guide covers the two cafes in more detail.
Around Halloween the SUP Witches, a group of costumed paddleboarders, leave the Lakeside Cluster dock and stop at the plaza for a photo. This year’s paddle is Sunday, November 1, at 1 p.m., and our fall events calendar has the launch details.
Our first-Saturday plan for a buyer is simple. Start at Lake Anne Coffee House & Wine Bar for a coffee and a breakfast sandwich by the water, then walk back toward the parking lot, where the farmers market runs until noon. From spring into November, a craft market often sets up on the plaza as well.
Lake Anne’s homes are mostly townhouses and condos built between 1965 and 1972
Simon planned Lake Anne around clusters, groups of attached homes that share common ground and parking, and he hired separate architects for the plaza and for several of the clusters around it. Only two of the 37 homes in the sales table below are detached. These communities sit within about half a mile of the plaza:
- Washington Plaza and Chimney House Road. Conklin and Rossant’s townhouses, built in 1965, sit inside the historic district on the plaza’s edge.
- Heron House. Rossant’s tower at the south end of the plaza holds 66 condominiums finished in 1966, and it is the only high-rise on the lake.
- Waterview Cluster. Chloethiel Woodard Smith designed these pastel townhouses on the shore as a reinterpretation of Portofino’s rowhouses.
- Hickory Cluster. Charles M. Goodman’s townhouses northwest of the plaza have flat roofs and walls of glass.
- Wainwright Drive. Platted as Reston First Addition, these townhouses of 1,400 to 2,600 square feet went up west of the plaza from 1966 into the 1970s.
- Lakeview and Northgate. Condominium buildings from 1972 and 1971, on Moorings Drive and Northgate Square.
Two newer projects sit off North Shore Drive. Lake Anne House, 240 apartments for low-income seniors, opened in 2022. Tri Pointe Homes built Lake Anne Towns, 36 townhouses on the site of the old Lake Anne Fellowship House, and one of them, built in 2025, was on the market at $1,199,900 in mid-October.
Lake Anne sales ran from $150,000 to $2.38 million in 2026
Bright MLS recorded these closed sales from January 1 through September 30, 2026:
| Community | Home type | Built | Sales | Price range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northgate | Condo | 1971 | 14 | $150,000 to $360,000 |
| Heron House and other Lake Anne of Reston condo units | Condo | 1966 | 3 | $170,000 to $425,000 |
| Lakeview | Condo | 1972 | 2 | $320,000 to $350,000 |
| Hickory Cluster | Townhouse | 1965 | 2 | $624,900 to $670,000 |
| Wainwright Drive | Townhouse | 1966 to 1977 | 8 | $540,000 to $890,000 |
| Washington Plaza and Chimney House Road | Townhouse | 1965 | 4 | $760,000 to $897,000 |
| Waterview Cluster | Townhouse | 1965 | 2 | $850,000 to $950,000 |
| South Shore Road | Detached | 1966 to 1967 | 2 | $945,000 to $2,380,000 |
Both Waterview sales went under contract within five days of listing. The four plaza townhouses took 9 to 92 days.
Heron House fees in this year’s sales ran from $854 a month for a studio to $1,877 for a two-bedroom, and a current Heron House listing says the fee covers every utility, including electricity, heat, air conditioning, water and cable. Most Northgate sales carried fees of $567 to $731, and Lakeview’s two ran $543 and $554. Every owner also pays the Reston Association (RA) assessment, $890 for 2026, and RA staff have proposed $900 for 2027. Our post on what it costs to own a home in Reston adds property taxes and insurance to those monthly costs.
Heron House carries the highest fees of the three, and its owners have also faced special assessments and steep increases in recent years, so read the board minutes and reserve study before writing an offer. Those fees are a big reason the prices are so low for a lake view. The median Reston condo sold this year carried a fee of about $546 a month, according to our comparison of Reston association fees, while Heron House fees ran $854 to $1,877 and include utilities. A buyer who can carry the higher fee gets a view that would sell for far more in a building with ordinary dues.
Waterview and Hickory buyers usually start with the flat roofs and want to know they drain properly. Parking comes next, since both clusters rely on shared parking courts with only a few carports. Buyers who hope to add a bathroom or change the number of bedrooms also ask early which walls are load-bearing.
Plaza homes answer to two design boards
Exterior changes anywhere in Reston go through Reston Association’s Design Review Board. The historic overlay district adds a second, county review for Heron House and the Washington Plaza and Chimney House buildings. Under the county’s 2024 design guidelines, the Architectural Review Board must approve demolition, additions, new decks and screened porches, and new exterior stairs inside the district. Window and door replacements, fences and gutters skip the county review. The district covers 41 acres, stops at the waterline, and its building inventory does not include Waterview or Hickory.
In practice, the county board rarely holds anyone up. The approvals our clients deal with come from the Lake Anne Reston Condominium Association, known as LARCA, and from Reston Association, and the plaza townhouses leave little room for exterior changes in the first place.
The Crescent amendment passed on September 29, and the plaza’s next project is new signs
The Crescent Apartments, 181 income-restricted apartments from the 1960s on 16.5 acres at 1513 and 1531 Cameron Crescent Drive, sit just northeast of the plaza. The county bought them in 2006 and conveyed them to the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority in 2025. The county’s Comprehensive Plan, the long-range land use guide that zoning cases must follow, allows up to 750 homes there and requires any redevelopment to replace all 181 affordable units. The September vote left both of those provisions alone.
The Board’s September 29 vote raised the site’s allowance for non-residential space from 2,000 to 30,000 square feet, enough for a larger Reston Community Center satellite to replace the leased space at 1609-A Washington Plaza. The vote approved no building, developer or demolition date. The community center’s plaza lease has about 13 years left, and Supervisor Walter Alcorn said the county still has to work out how to pay for a new building, FFXnow reported. The housing authority’s next step is choosing a development partner, and traffic, parking and access go to a future rezoning with its own hearings. Our earlier post on the Crescent amendment covers the traffic counts and the hearing record.
The last large plan for the village center, which would have rebuilt the Crescent along with it, collapsed in 2015. The county finished an economic visioning study for the area in November 2024, and in April its consultant unveiled concepts for new Lake Anne signs, starting with two along Baron Cameron Avenue that read “Lake Anne” above “Reston VA | 1963.”
Lake Anne Elementary, Hughes Middle and South Lakes High serve most Lake Anne addresses
The FCPS boundary locator assigns Heron House, Washington Plaza, Chimney House Road, Waterview, Hickory’s Maple Ridge Road, Wainwright Drive, Moorings Drive and South Shore Road to Lake Anne Elementary on North Shore Drive for 2026-27, then to Hughes Middle and South Lakes High. Northgate Square and Inlet Court, on the east side of the neighborhood, go to Forest Edge Elementary and then to the same middle and high schools.
The School Board adopted a countywide boundary review in January 2026, phased in starting this school year, and FCPS notes that its locator may lag those changes. Check the exact address before writing an offer, and confirm with FCPS facilities planning if a school assignment drives the decision.
Both Metro stations sit about two miles from the plaza by road
Lake Anne Plaza sits about 1.4 miles from the Wiehle-Reston East station and 1.5 miles from the Reston Town Center station in a straight line, and about two miles from either by car. Wiehle Avenue, which runs past the east side of the lake, also reaches the Dulles Toll Road.
On foot, Reston Association’s Green Trail covers the 1.43 miles from Fountain Square at Reston Town Center to the Lake Anne fountain in about 25 minutes, passing Lake Anne Elementary and Hickory Cluster on the way. The Blue Trail crosses the Van Gogh Bridge into the village center, and a loop around the lake runs about 1.5 miles. Our Reston trails guide maps every route.
Lake Anne residents who ride Metro have three good options. Fairfax Connector’s RIBS 1 bus runs along North Shore Drive and serves both the Wiehle-Reston East and Reston Town Center stations. A Capital Bikeshare station sits at North Shore Drive and Village Road, next to the plaza, with more docks around the lake. Drivers usually head to Wiehle-Reston East, which has a large parking garage, while Reston Town Center works mostly as a walk-up and drop-off station for the Town Center and Halley Rise.
Reston Association manages the lake, and it allows paddling but no swimming
Lake Anne is one of four man-made lakes Reston Association manages, with Thoreau, Audubon and Newport. RA bans swimming on all four. Paddlers launch kayaks and boards from the ramp on Inlet Court, off Wiehle Avenue, and private boats need an RA permit. The $890 assessment pays for the lakes along with the pools, tennis courts and 55 miles of paved paths, and our guide to Reston Association fees breaks down the rest.
Check four things before writing an offer at Lake Anne
- The condo or cluster budget. Read the reserve study and the last year of board minutes in the resale packet, and look for a special assessment the board has voted but not yet billed.
- What the fee covers. Heron House’s fee includes every utility, so compare it against another building’s fee plus that unit’s utility bills.
- The school assignment for the exact address. Inlet Court and South Shore Road both sit on the lake, and they go to different elementary schools.
- The age of the systems. Most of these homes went up between 1965 and 1972. Ask for the dates of the last roof, window and HVAC replacements.
What surprises new Lake Anne owners most is how much of daily life they can reach on foot. They come for the lake views and the paths along the water, then find themselves walking to dinner, the farmers market, the museum, the used bookstore, the cafes and the brew house, and on longer outings all the way to Reston Town Center.
Lake Anne puts homes from the 1960s and early 1970s, priced from $150,000 to $2.38 million this year, within a short walk of a plaza and a lake. The Crescent’s redevelopment would reshape the block east of the plaza, and no building has been proposed there yet. If you are weighing a home at Lake Anne, reach out and we will walk the clusters with you.
See something missing or wrong? Email us at [email protected] and we will check it and update the post.
