The Berry family dammed a creek in 1955 to form Woodside Lake, roughly eight acres at 8761 Brook Road, and membership in it is optional rather than automatic.
Woodside Estates is organized around a body of water that a family made. The Berrys dammed a creek in 1955, creating the roughly eight-acre Woodside Lake at 8761 Brook Road, and in 1983 Woodside Estates Corp bought the lake from the trust for one dollar. The homes sit on R-1 lots — one dwelling unit per acre under Fairfax County's ordinance — across sections 2, 9, 10, 11 and 12, on the western side of McLean in ZIP 22102 rather than 22101. Buyers should understand one thing before touring: proximity to the lake and access to the lake are separate questions.
Woodside Lake is not a public amenity and not a county park. It has been in corporate ownership since the 1983 purchase, and it is operated for members. That structure explains a subtlety that catches buyers: the lake is a defining feature of the neighborhood without being an entitlement of every lot in it. Nothing about the address delivers the lake; a membership does.
As of August 2026, the published schedule runs $575 for an annual renewal, $175 for a senior renewal and $225 to initiate. Because it is elective, the numbers behave differently from a mandatory homeowners assessment: nobody is compelled to carry the cost, and nobody inherits access automatically at settlement. If a listing markets the lake, ask three specific questions — whether the seller currently holds a membership, whether anything transfers with the sale, and what initiation would cost you if it does not. Confirm current figures with the corporation before you rely on them.
R-1 zoning produces the largest lot pattern among McLean's residential districts, and the tree canopy on this side of the community generally predates the houses. The land constraint to check is water: the neighborhood lies in the Difficult Run watershed, and Resource Protection Areas are mapped in it. Fairfax County's Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance holds a 100-foot buffer along perennial streams and connected wetlands, inside which clear-cutting and converting vegetation to lawn are not permitted and land disturbance requires prior approval from Land Development Services. On acre lots, the buffer often takes in the part of the yard a buyer had plans for, so map it first.
McLean's street-delivery ZIP codes are 22101 and 22102, and Woodside Estates falls in 22102. That is a small fact with a practical edge, because a portal search filtered to 22101 will simply not return these houses. As of August 2026 the schools serving the neighborhood are Spring Hill Elementary, Cooper Middle and Langley High School — the Langley pyramid rather than the McLean pyramid that covers the community's eastern neighborhoods. The Fairfax County School Board last revised that boundary on February 4, 2021; verify a specific address with the FCPS boundary locator.
Woodside Estates sits within McLean — 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.
