Compton Ridge:
Right Next Door to Va. History
By Carlos SanchezWashington Post Staff Writer
October 24, 1992
Compton Ridge is a place where residents live next door to history.
Never mind the Manassas National Battlefield Park, which is little more than three miles up Compton Road. And forget even the eight-decade-old tradition of nature conservation that goes on at Izaak Walton Park, just across the street from the Centreville home development.
This history has more to do with Esther Robinson, 79, and her sister, Amy Gaskins, 78.
The two women and several other family members live along Mount Olive Road, the northern border of Compton Ridge, and can offer a historical perspective that would dazzle the young professionals who are moving into this four-year-old development off Interstate 66 and State Road 28 at the western edge of Fairfax County.
Fifth-generation descendants of a black freeman born in 1799 and named “Gentleman Jim” Robinson, the two sisters grew up playing in the wooded fields owned by their father that now make up the bulk of the four- and five-bedroom homes being offered by two developers in the Compton Ridge subdivision.
“My father owned 56 acres,” said Gaskin, pointing toward Pickets Post Road, the third of five planned sections that will eventually be developed by Ryland Homes Inc. and G&M Homes. “He had cattle and wheat and corn, right over there near that [new] house.”
More than 500 acres once belonged to Gentleman Jim’s offspring in this area, although his personal holdings went much beyond that, his descendants say, and included a house that fell in the no-man’s land between the two opposing Civil War armies that met on the Manassas battlefield. Most of the Robinson and Gaskins land, which included most of Compton Ridge, roughly bounded by Mount Olive Road, Compton Road, Old Centreville Road and Confederate Ridge Lane, was sold to developers in 1986.
And while the two sisters and several other relatives live all along Mount Olive, the bulk of the subdivision now belongs to young families such as the Quallichs, who moved into the neighborhood three years ago.
“We love it here,” said Sandy Quallich, a retired Fairfax County sheriff’s deputy. “We love our neighbors; it’s a very diverse neighborhood.”
And, according to several neighbors, it is a community that is growing tightknit rather quickly. Since they moved in, for example, the Quallichs have spearheaded summer block parties that this year attracted 30 families.
Part of this community spirit may stem from the area’s isolation relative to other Centreville subdivisions, said Susan Morabito, president of G&M Homes.
Compton Ridge is an island of homes that is surrounded by land owned by Fairfax County to the south and west, land that abuts the environmentally protected Bull Run Regional Park. To the north is Izaak Walton Park, which has been a mainstay in the community for at least 80 years. And to the east is a utility right of way for high-voltage power lines. While these neighbors will assure a relatively low-density development for Compton Ridge, they can prove to be the nuisances to the area. The huge tract of land owned by Fairfax County, for example, is a buffer zone between the development and the Upper Occoquan Sewage Treatment Plant, a state-of-the-art facility that, nevertheless, isn’t the type of amenity neighbors brad about.
And Izaak Walton Park is home to a clay shooting range, providing for a regular song of blasting shotguns.
But residents seem not to notice such intrusions. “It really is becoming a community,” said Karen Trainor, a Realtor who has lived in Compton Ridge for four years.
It’s a mix of ethnic and racial groups, all balanced by a 30-something age range of professionals who are either buying their first home or stepping up to a larger home.
The prices of homes range from the $170,000s to the $240,000s, said Morabito. And lot sizes can be as large as 12,000 square feet.
This island of development also is convenient to many nearby amenities, according to Quallich. “It’s sort of in the middle of everything,” she said. This includes Manassas, Clifton and Fairfax City. Access is by Interstate 66 and Route 29. Two Virginia Railway Express commuter rail stations are within a few minutes driving distance and Dulles International Airport is about a dozen miles to the north.
Before the developers vacate their model homes, about 200 homes are anticipated for Compton Ridge, more than half of them already built.
And overlooking them all will be those descendants of Gentleman Jim. Robinson admits that her family, which numbers more than 3,000 and keeps in close contact through a family newsletter, complained when the land that once belonged to them was sold.
But, she said, there wasn’t much else to do with it. The soil was too poor to effectively farm and the much of the land wouldn’t perk, meaning that septic systems couldn’t be installed and the land was virtually uninhabitable without bringing in county-owned sewer lines, which the two sisters couldn’t afford.
“I’m glad I sold the land,” Robinson said. “I like seeing it in use.”
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