Columbia Forest Historic District

Columbia Forest is a small residential neighborhood in the southwest corner of Arlington County, Virginia, made up of 233 two-story Colonial Revival houses built between 1942 and 1945. It was created when the federal Defense Housing Corporation, working through the Army Corps of Engineers, sought to ease a wartime housing shortage for defense and government workers near Washington, D.C. Westbrook, Incorporated built the first phase in concrete block, and Jesse Johnson built the later brick phase. Builders varied the number of bays, wall material and gable orientation to produce seven house forms, each with the same number of rooms. Curving streets, cul-de-sacs, mature trees and houses set in close pairs give the area its character. Rear additions, replacement windows and new siding have changed some houses, yet the original massing, setbacks and overall feeling of a government-planned suburb remain largely intact. Later development around the district was excluded from the boundary.