Tauxemont Historic District

Tauxemont is a wooded residential community about three miles south of Alexandria, Virginia, started in 1941 by a group of government employees building affordable homes together. Its roughly 100 original houses were built in three sections. Most are one-story concrete block houses with low-pitched gable roofs, designed by architect Alexander Knowlton and later extended by developer Robert Davenport. Houses were angled on their lots to preserve trees and hillside contours, and the neighborhood never added sidewalks, curbs or streetlights. Shared facilities include community wells, a preschool and community building, tennis courts and a ball field. Ten houses in the third section are prefabricated aluminum, a postwar attempt to convert wartime factories to housing. In the late 1940s several owners hired architect Charles Goodman to design glass-filled additions, which anticipated the Hollin Hills development. The district was listed for its community planning and Modern Movement architecture between 1941 and 1955.