Buckingham Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Buckingham is a garden apartment community in Arlington, Virginia, developed in six phases between 1937 and 1953. The expanded district adds 83 contributing buildings, mostly two-story brick-clad tile apartment buildings with slate roofs and Colonial Revival detailing. Henry Wright designed the exterior and site plan, with Allan F. Kamstra overseeing most of the construction. Buildings cover less than twenty percent of the land. They are arranged along angled streets and around U-shaped courtyards, with landscaped parks, interior footpaths and tree-lined streets planted on former farmland. The district also holds a small commercial center near Glebe Road and Pershing Drive, with shops, a theater, a drugstore and a post office, as well as two gatehouses and a superintendent's house. The nomination presents the complex as a notable example of planned garden-community design, built for middle-income tenants. The developer tested tenant preferences and changed the plan accordingly, for example by dropping interior garages. Most of the original character remains intact.