My Impressions of the Loudoun Towns

What follows is a scholarly account of the various communities of the county of Loudoun. Please keep discussion civil:

Waterford: The locus of Loudoun County. The hub of the universe. What else can I say? I kid. As I’ve said earlier, growing up here was a lot of fun. It’s notorious for its snobby, aristocratic attitude, which masquerades itself as historical purity to circumvent the straight-up rich disdain of places like Middleburg, a place with much less white guilt than Waterford. Perhaps many in Loudoun hate Waterford because of this self-righteous liberalism. I think all the complaints about slow speed limits and preservation and what-have-you are really just politics, and ultimately I’m not sure what the root differences in psychology are between liberals and conservatives (in fact, Loudoun County’s branch of liberals are pretty conservative themselves in regards to a lot of things other than politics), but in any case, as Bethany has said, there is a lot of grousing and bullyknocking from the other, genetically inferior residents of Loudoun towards Waterford.

Really, I couldn’t give much less of a fuck about this, because it’s a nice little village (not a town, since it’s unincorporated and lacks a showy mayor strolling around and hitting on girls half his age) with some beautiful stuff. It also has the pool, which I believe we’ve posted on before and dominated a large part of our childhoods. My pick for the #1 town in Loudoun, but yes, this is incredibly biased.

Leesburg: The real hub and locus of Loudoun County, it is also the capital and I assume most populous town in Loudoun. Although notorious for its increasingly rampant strip malls and rows of townhouses on the outskirts, I still think of the downtown when I think of Leesburg, and it’s not a bad one. I think of running along the bike trail past Loudoun County High School or even the famous Bermuda Triangle of Leesburg, which is the lost area which houses the ABC liquor store (complete with the surly employee who sure as fuck is not going to card you for that bottle of Mr. Boston or Bacardi [if you are trying to get laid]), Roy Rogers, Safeway, and now the workplace of all Loudoun Valley High School graduates—Verizon. It’s not very unusual for a town of its size, but that’s not really a bad thing. At least it has a pretty big downtown area. No, it’s not just by the courthouse, but expands from the Ida Lee out to areas like Loudoun County High School out to Blockbuster (fuck the Blockbuster in Purcellville).

Purcellville: An area I’ve avoided since high school because of all the types that Bethany mentions who I don’t want to see. I’m sorry, but after I graduated I don’t want to be associated with the post-grads like Taylor Dooley or Greg Rickert who go after the Valley chicks for years afterwards and basically just stay in some sort of grey area locally forever (meaning until now). I have mostly through my years associated Purcellville only with school, since that was about my only reason to venture into it. Perhaps this has left a sour taste on my mouth. The better parts of town are the parts towards the west side, with the community center and the bike trail, etc. I’m sure it’s different if you grew up here, but I’ve just always associated it with the annoying kids of Valley—the bad kids who would hang around smoking cigarettes in the parking lot because they actually had parking lots in their town, unlike ours. Because of my avoidance of it, I tend not to really know much about it, so take that as you will.

Hamilton: This always seemed like a stop between Waterford and Purcellville, but I do not mean that in a bad way. I like Hamilton because it seems like a normal small town without any sort of redneck or white guilt prejudice, which are the two battles continually being fought in Loudoun County (the white guilt one is obviously winning, and has defeated the rest of NOVA a very, very long time ago). I haven’t particularly gone to it very often, other than Ashley Wallace’s house, but I always felt it was a nice place. It also had the best playground in the county growing up. I believe we went to the elementary school there for FUTURA in elementary school. I associate this town with house league soccer and rattails.

Lincoln: The famed moral battleground in the dissolution of the Waterford trio of me, Daniel, and Greg. Daniel remained neutral, Greg sided with Round Hill, and I sided with Lincoln. Known for its wide variety of strange denizens, from Luke Burgher to Kristin Feickert to the Faroes to Kyle Anderberg, they seemed to have a pretty tight-knit town actually, probably because they seemed to have so many people of the same age and temperament. It’s notable for its easy-going spirit, perhaps fostered by its Quaker roots, as well as being the site of many back roads where Loudoun Valley kids got high for the first time in the backseat of a Jeep with Taylor Dooley driving. There was a period where James Jones and I went here every day, and it was a great one. I like how it’s set up, with its dirt roads along the forest, instead of having a real downtown area.

Lovettsville: Apparently this is the rival of Waterford, but who knew? Again, I haven’t been to it all that much, other than to go to Molly Darr’s house and occasionally drive through it. Seems like a nice enough place. It distinctly has a feel of more backwoods than even the rest of Western Loudoun, especially when you look at the window and a mountain is looming ever closer, like the moon slowly grinning its way towards the earth in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Bethany says it has a Confederate vibe, and I’m not sure if this is true myself because of limited experience, but it definitely feels like more of a rural town than others.

Hillsboro: My connections to this small town (I believe it also might be unincorporated) are twofold: my ex-girlfriend Alex lived here right off Rt. 9 and my grandmother’s house has always been here. This town is a bit darker and seedier than the rest of Loudoun, probably due to its place on the way to the racetracks of Charleston, WVA. It is basically nothing more than a collection of houses right off Rt. 9, but it has an air of gambling and boozing and unshaven rednecks about it, and it’s best to watch your step here, in my opinion. Things get different in Loudoun the farther west you go, even past supposedly Western Loudoun places like Purcellville and Waterford.

Lucketts/Taylorstown: Very small parts of Loudoun tucked away in the corners, I learned from my mom yesterday that Taylorstown is named after my dad’s ancestor who settled there around 1730, first as an indentured servant. Does anyone actually go to these places? I think not.

Round Hill: The “bad boy” of Loudoun County, this was Greg’s moral homebase during the war waged in the hearts of Waterford. Full of kids who started smoking when they were 13 and who had no qualms about showing that off to girls a sixth younger than them, it actually feels like a town that has some semblance of unity that we missed out on in Waterford when I go there, however infrequently. I think the fact that it has a diner lends itself an air of small-town togetherness. I wish we had that in Waterford. That is Waterford’s greatest weakness: it has no real sense of unity, other than a incredibly self-righteous sense of white guilt liberalism, probably because it really has no fun hang-out spots for people to gather in. In Waterford there is a tremendous sense of behind-closed-doors cattiness among the residents that I suspect does not exist in the other communities. Mostly because the people are all rich and retired, so they can afford to do such things. Round Hill has always been a community of posing bad boys, but in comparison to Hillsboro, it really seems kind of quaint.

Middleburg: This is a rich place, but at least it has no bones about showing that it is what it is. I don’t particularly come here often, but it’s known for its horses of course. I believe Jackie Kennedy once lived here, although I might be mistaken on that one. She at least owned a store or visited or something. I would say these people are snobby and all dicks, but then again I’ve never met any of them. I suppose Daniel has had closer encounters with them (described here).

Upperville: Haha, what else can I say about this place other than James Jones? Wild-child and the ultimate hedonist of Loudoun County, everyone hates him now, but only me and Daniel and perhaps Johanna Faroe and Molly seem to remember how great of a kid he used to be. I couldn’t care less what he has done since, he was a charismatic person, the Jim Morrison of his generation, degrading into bloated filth and excess, but none of us can forget the glory years of his youth. Perhaps a sign of his demise was when his family moved to Beacon Hill, which is an annoying “suburb” of Waterford full of McMansions. On a side note, does anyone think that any of these houses even look nice? When you see nice, old stone houses in various parts of Loudoun of equal size and much more beautiful architecture, it makes the crappy, ready-made mansions in these areas look very paltry in comparison. But most people in NOVA have never seen beautiful architecture, so they continue to see these large pleasure palaces as signs of wealth and prestige, when in reality they won’t be around for more than a generation or so and the old historical homes will still be standing and admired for a long time (at least if the Waterford Foundation doesn’t give up its battle and lets them all be bulldozed).

Paeonian Springs: Um, well I like the downtown part, mostly just because it has the bike trail. I’m not even sure if this is a town or not. Perhaps someone else can give a better take on it.

Ashburn: Home of the dull, listless sirens that seem to lure those who remain in Loudoun, this is an area I’m rather not fond of, but unfortunately I also work here. It lacks any sort of town spirit like the ones I described above in Loudoun County. Basically just a development of endless townhouses and shopping complexes, this is truly an area devoid of personality, much like its residents. I can’t imagine ever wanting to live here, although Heather from my work wanted to live here, probably because she grew up here. This is going to sound incredibly snobby, but I don’t give a fuck because I grew up in Waterford, but when I think of people who grew up in Ashburn, I think of those who grew up texting instead of reading, and losing their virginity at age 13. I haven’t ever really been proven wrong on this.

Sterling: While it’s another pseudo-suburban wasteland like Ashburn, it at least feels less like upper-middle-class white, non-intellectual paradise than Ashburn does, because of its multitude of immigrants, whether they are Hispanic or Vietnamese or Pakistani or whatever. It feels a little bit less annoying for that reason. On the flipside, it probably has the worst crime in the county. But then again, I don’t live there, so I don’t worry about it. Traffic around Drainesville Road is always a sinkhole, and lends some credibility to the name of that road. The area around Borders was pretty depressing to work in, though, and Sterling is basically just an infinite number of lines of townhouses heading back towards the airport. God help those who live here.

Bluemont: I’m throwing this in at the end. I forgot about it. It defines the southwestern corridor of Loudoun, high up on the mountain towards Winchester, and reminds me of something almost out of Lord of the Rings because of that mountain. For that reason alone, it’s a bit of a romantic town for me. My only experiences with it really are through Kelley Anderson and Terry Daley. I like both of them, so therefore I like the town. I’ve never been to its annual fair however.

--Edward