A 1921 tract whose name preserves the county's discarded one — ALexandria COunty VA — with an active citizens association and no historic-district review attached to it.
Listing feeds and search boxes will offer you Alcove Heights. The name is Alcova, and the difference is not cosmetic, because the word is an acronym rather than a description of the terrain. J. Cloyd Byars bought 142 acres here in 1921 and built the name out of ALexandria COunty VA — what this county was called until it was renamed Arlington in 1920. The subdivision therefore carries the county's retired name, coined within roughly a year of its retirement, which is a better fix on its age than anything in a listing description.
Spelling matters here in a way it does not in most neighborhoods, because the misspelling is common enough to split search results and to appear in typed MLS neighborhood fields. Search the correct spelling when you look for sales history, and check the recorded subdivision name on the plat and the deed rather than the neighborhood field on a listing sheet. That recorded name is what a title examiner, an appraiser pulling comparables and the county assessment record all work from, and it is the version that will still be right in ten years.
The verified core of this neighborhood's origin is narrow and worth stating precisely: a 142-acre purchase by Byars in 1921, and the name he gave it. No single builder, build-out schedule or house count for the whole tract is documented, and a tract of that size bought in 1921 would not have been finished in one campaign. Expect construction dates spread across decades and confirm the year built for any specific house against county records rather than the listing copy, which in Arlington routinely rounds a 1930s house and a postwar one into the same sentence.
The Alcova Heights Citizens Association is a member of the Arlington County Civic Federation, and it authored the neighborhood's own entry for the county's Center for Local History. That is unusual and useful. It means there is a primary account of the place written by the body that speaks for it, rather than the aggregator copy that fills most neighborhood pages, and it means county proposals touching these blocks get a neighborhood-level position from a named organization you can contact before you buy.
No historic district designation was found for Alcova Heights, local or National Register. Nothing here triggers a Certificate of Appropriateness from Arlington's Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board, and no private architectural committee reviews an exterior change. What binds instead is county-wide. Lot coverage caps vary by zoning district across R-5 through R-20 and limit the main building separately from total coverage, so run the specific district before pricing an addition. Arlington's tree preservation ordinance applies to significant removals. Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Areas cover streams and wetlands plus a 100-foot vegetated buffer landward of them, on a map last comprehensively revised in 2003 and updated most recently in 2017; as of August 2026 the county was bringing its ordinance in line with state amendments, so confirm the current map and text for a specific parcel. Expanded Housing Options, adopted March 22, 2023 and effective July 1, 2023, allows two- to six-unit buildings by right in those districts within the envelope already allowed for a detached house; it was in force as of August 2026 with the litigation pending before the Supreme Court of Virginia, which agreed on May 19, 2026 to hear the case without pausing development and had issued no decision by August 2026. Arlington Public Schools assigns every address to a school and redraws boundaries periodically, so confirm the current assignment with APS.
Alcova Heights sits within Arlington — that guide covers the zoning, permitting and site constraints that apply across the wider area.
Artur can confirm what applies to a specific address here — lot, zoning, association documents and school assignment — before you write an offer.
