Living in Vienna VA
Location
Vienna is just west of Tyson’s Corner, with 123, called Maple Avenue, running right through the middle. The borders jump around through the neighborhood but I-66 is the southernmost border, Nutley Street to the west, then it cuts up to Northside Park and includes Westwood Country Club. Vienna’s population is 16,000.
You have easy access here to the Vienna Metro Station, which is the recently opened Silver Line.
History
Settlers first came to Vienna in the mid 1700’s and named it Ayr Hill. In the 1850’s the town name was changed to Vienna by another settler, who renamed it after his hometown in New York. In June 1861, one of the earliest battles of the Civil War happened here, and there are still several markers in Vienna on the Civil War History.
Real Estate
In Vienna you will find homes at a variety of price points. There is a good bit of single family detached housing available in the $700’s to $1M range. But it will depend what you want. If you’re looking for a huge house on more land, that will be tougher to find until you get into higher price points. There are ramblers in the $700’s, and then split levels and colonials as you approach the $1M mark. Once you get to the $1M to $1.2M price range, there are going to be a lot of options available. And the prices go up from there, so if you want to spend over $2M you can, but these will either be new construction or much larger homes. You will find that there are a lot of teardowns, which is typically a rambler style home or something else that is less home on more land. These get torn down frequently and turned into what people call McMansions. I found a street for you where it was teardown, McMansion, teardown, McMansion, teardown, McMansion.
Condos in Vienna start in the mid to high $200’s and go to about $500,000. Townhouses pick up at the $500,000 price point and go over $1M, depending on area, condition and size.
Food
There are lots of grocery stores in Vienna – Giant, Whole Foods, Fresh Market are all off Maple Avenue. Harris Teeter is a bit south near 66.
For restaurants there is Greek, Mexican, Italian, Burgers. You have a little bit of everything on Vienna’s main strip of Maple Avenue with enough to satisfy all palettes. This isn’t the boring suburbs by any stretch, you do have a variety of ethnic foods. But of course, Tyson’s is just east with their options for restaurants as well.
Shopping & Fun
In Vienna, there’s shopping and restaurants along Maple Avenue. This is basically the Main Street of Vienna. There are some chain stores like Michael’s Crafts, and then smaller shops where you can get most quick conveniences. There’s also another shopping center, Cedar Park Shopping Center, which is at the corner of Cedar and Park. You can venture over to Tyson’s within a couple minutes if you need, as Vienna is very centrally located for easy access to pretty much everything.
The town of Vienna has 12 Parks, some of them include Nottoway Park, Cunningham Park, George C. Yeonas Park (I know his grandson) which is where the Vienna Little League plays, Northside Park, and fields at Waters and Caffi.
The Vienna Recreation Center is home to recreational and educational programs they offer as well as festivals & concerts year-round. There’s Chillin on Church which is a monthly block party June to September, Fourth of July fireworks at Yeonas Park, a Halloween Parade, Holiday Stroll, Oktoberfest, a Kids on the Green summer series of events, Farmer’s Market, ViVa Vienna which is a music and craft festival, and rides on Memorial Day Weekend.
Every time I read about the NoVa parks and Rec I get pissed off that I live in DC.
The W & OD (Washington and Old Dominion) Trail goes right through Vienna. The entire trail is 45 miles and runs from Shirlington in South Arlington to Purcellville, Virginia.
Vienna Aquatic Club is a private club. Membership is limited to 450 members and there is currently a wait list of 3-4 years. It’s $775 to join and then $500 dues. The pool is only open in the summer months.
Cardinal Hill Swim and Racquet Club is located in Wolf Trap Steam Valley Park. There’s a 7-8 year waitlist currently and they have 650 members. Membership is $3525 and dues are $850 annually.
Hunter Mill Swim & Racquet Club has a Vienna mailing address but it’s up near the Dulles Toll Road pretty close to Reston. It’s $750 to join and $700 annual dues. There has not been a waitlist in the past but there is one now. There are no estimates available about the timing.
Vienna Woods, almost not worth mentioning with their 11 year wait list. They offer 750 memberships, one time fee is $1700 and annual dues are $695. Vienna Woods is located right by Cunningham Park.
If you got the money honey you can join Westwood Country Club. There’s a $75,000 initiation fee.
Wolftrap is a national park for performing arts. Lots of concerts happen here during the season, May – September, of all music types, dance performances, opera.
Kids
People move to Vienna for the same reasons anyone would move to a sought after suburb. The family activities are plentiful, the living isn’t hectic and the schools are good. In Vienna, 40% of the households have children under the age of 18.
In Vienna, there are several elementary schools. Cunningham Park, Louise Archer, Vienna, Marshall Road and Wolf Trap. There are two middle schools – Thoreau Middle, Kilmer Middle and an option to do Advanced Academics at Jackson Middle in McLean. These schools all feed to Madison High School. Madison’s academic programs include AP classes, Global Classroom with partnerships with Colombia and France, and Residential Governor’s Programs for 10th and 11th graders interested in Visual and Performing Arts. They have a separate website, Warhawk Sports, with information about the sports at Madison. They have a really robust sports program – Football, Tennis, Cross Country, Field Hockey, Dance, Golf, Basketball, Baseball, Crew, Softball, Lacrosse, Track. They have a ton of sports fields, it is incredibly impressive.
The “Great Schools Scores” pretty much track to what we see all over. Elementary scores are 7’s 8’s 9’s. Middle school drops to 5-6 and high school is a 6. These scores are pretty subjective though because they are based on test scores. Let me tell you about test scores. My 5th grader just finished up a math module and now they are working on prepping for their next round of standardized tests which is over a month from now. These are your Great Schools score people. Take it with a grain of salt.
Also in Vienna is Lee Music Studio which offers piano and trumpet lessons.
Dogs
Dogs are well represented in Vienna. One of the best specialty vets in the area is in Vienna – Hope Vet. You can see them for general veterinary visits, but they have ophthalmology, cardiology, and oncology.
Vienna has a dog park at 700 Courthouse Road in Nottoway Park.
