When Adrienne Stefan and her husband were living in DC, they both agreed they wanted to move into a historic home in Virginia. After some house hunting, Stefan came across the Oakton Trolley Station in Fairfax County. The station had been converted into a home in the mid-80’s and offered features that Stefan just couldn’t turn down. Being a Victorian style home with mostly unmanicured grounds and a 90-foot wrap around porch, Adrienne has called this historic property home for more than 25 years.
Built in 1905, the Oakton Trolley Station is the only station remaining from the Washington and Fairfax Electric Railway line which operated from 1904 to 1939. The property possesses historic, natural, ecological, open space and scenic views. On top of that, it has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1995.
When we asked Stefan what it means to her to have a property on the National Register of Historic Places, she said, “The thing, to my mind, that is more important is that it helped contribute to granting the conservation easement and I absolutely love the idea that this can’t be developed.”
The property hasn’t always been residential, however. Over the years, the property has been through many different iterations. “It was a post office, it was a grocery store, it was a train station, it was a residence, it was abandoned, there was a motorcycle gang here…there’s all kinds of history connected with it.”
The Oakton Trolley property is home to wild animals like foxes, raccoons, groundhogs, deer, any number of birds from woodpeckers, hawks, goldfinches and bluebirds, snakes and box turtles and fireflies! The property also features native plants like milkweed, aster, bee balm, mountain mint, new jersey tea and more.
“I would like the community to look at it and take away the idea that anyone can plant a couple of natives or leave an area of their lawn untended and it makes a huge difference if everybody did just a little bit.”
