Five construction phases between 1939 and 1948 that deliberately mixed detached houses, garden apartments, duplexes and twins across 173.4 acres.
Westover, sometimes called Westover Village, was built as a mixed neighborhood on purpose. Five phases ran from 1939 to 1948, beginning with the Westover Apartments in 1939 and Westover Hills in 1940-41, and the plan set Colonial Revival houses, two-story garden apartments, duplexes and twin houses along winding streets rather than segregating them by type. The National Register listed the district on May 2, 2006 under VDHR file 000-0032: 173.4 acres and 383 contributing buildings, recognized for its place in New Deal and Federal Housing Administration history and listed under both the Garden Apartments and the Historic Residential Suburbs multiple property submissions.
Westover was constructed using Stran-Steel framing, concrete floors and assembly-line building methods - techniques driven by the era's material constraints and by the push to produce housing fast. This is not decorative history. Steel framing and concrete floor systems change how you run new wiring or plumbing, how you attach anything to a wall, how sound moves between units, and what a renovation costs. Bring a contractor who has actually worked on this construction type before you budget a kitchen or a bath here.
A Westover address can be a detached Colonial Revival house, a unit in a two-story garden apartment building, half of a duplex, or a twin. Those are four distinct products with different ownership structures, maintenance obligations and buyer pools, and they are interleaved along the same winding streets. The first question on any Westover listing is which of the four it is, and the second is what it shares structurally with what is next to it.
Many of the garden-apartment buildings have been converted to condominium, but not uniformly, and conversion history varies across the district. Do not infer the ownership form from the building's appearance or from a neighboring address. Where a purchase is condominium or association-governed, Virginia's Resale Disclosure Act gives at least three days after delivery of the resale certificate to cancel, and longer if the ratified contract provides for it, as of August 2026. In buildings of this age, spend that window on the reserve study, the capital plan for roofs and systems, and any special assessment under discussion.
The National Register listing is honorary and does not require a Certificate of Appropriateness for exterior work; that requirement belongs to Arlington's local historic districts, and Westover is not one. Zoning height, setback and coverage limits apply, as do the county's tree preservation and stormwater ordinances, and Arlington's Expanded Housing Options rules reach the detached-house lots in the R-5 through R-20 districts - in force as of August 2026 with the litigation pending at the Supreme Court of Virginia. Arlington Public Schools assigns by address and redraws boundaries from time to time, so confirm the current assignment with APS for the specific unit or house.
Westover 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.
