Virginia Hills Church celebrated the start of a fresh chapter in its 69-year history earlier this month with the dedication of a brand-new house of worship in Rose Hill.
Located on the same property at 6507 Telegraph Road that the Baptist church has occupied since the late 1950s, the new building is more compact than its predecessor, but church leaders hope it will enhance their ability to serve the residents beyond their congregation.
“A big part of our vision is creating a space that will be utilized by the community. We want to be a community outreach facility,” Virginia Hills Church Pastor Bart Purdy said before a dedication service and ribbon-cutting ceremony on July 12.
In addition to hosting services for Virginia Hills, the church is now home to Kingstowne Communion, a United Methodist church that previously convened in schools. It also hosts Virginia Hills’ preschool, before and after-school day care programs for elementary school-aged kids, a local Boy Scout troop and an English as a Second Language (ESOL) program.
The ESOL classes will be provided in partnership with nearby Rose Hill Elementary School, Purdy told FFXnow.
Formally established on Sept. 4, 1957, Virginia Hills Church was started by original pastor Bill Davenport at the request of the Del Ray Baptist Church, which wanted to introduce itself to the nascent neighborhood south of Alexandria with a new mission church.
After initially meeting at Virginia Hills Elementary School, now an administrative center for Fairfax County Public Schools, the church’s 55 founding members added enough people to their flock that they soon bought an approximately 7.5-acre parcel on Telegraph Road.
Opened in 1959, the original church building was subsequently expanded in 1964 with larger sanctuary that could seat around 250 people and an educational wing for a kindergarten program.
By the time Purdy took over as pastor in 1987, two years after Davenport retired, the building was “already showing signs of wear and tear,” and maintenance increasingly became a challenge for the church’s aging leadership team, he said.
“All of the founding members who were very young when they started this thing were now old and decrepit and falling apart, like I am now,” Purdy said. “And it just got to the point where … there was so much to taking care of it and upgrading it and fixing things.”
The church’s constantly leaking roof, outdated HVAC system and deteriorating plumbing infrastructure were coupled with a more modestly-sized congregation that hadn’t filled the sanctuary to capacity in years.
Seeing the under-utilized space, one member suggested in 2017 that the church could consider selling part of its land occupied by a ballfield. Purdy admits that his first response was to reject the idea, but as he and other church leaders contemplated it more deeply, they realized they had a valuable opportunity.
Virginia Hills Church sold the back half of the property — approximately 217,800 square feet stretching to the athletic fields at Franconia District Park — to Brightview Senior Living for $5.125 million in June 2020, according to Fairfax County property records.
The transaction paved the way for Brightview to open a new community next door with 167 independent living, assisted living and dementia care apartments last July. Though the two organizations had hoped to open at the same time, permitting delays resulted in Virginia Hills Church not starting construction until around that time, according to Purdy.
Funded by the sale proceeds as well as some community donations, the new church building was completed in June, allowing the congregation to start moving in from its temporary home at Mount Vernon United Methodist Church.
“As soon as the building was ready, we moved in, started doing some practice runs — a soft opening, if you will — to prepare,” Purdy said.
At approximately 10,892 square feet in size, the new building has a 169-seat sanctuary with a fellowship hall that can serve as an overflow room and host events, six preschool classrooms, and a full kitchen. Other improvements include central air conditioning, an emergency sprinkler system and Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant facilities.
Purdy says he’s particularly “jazzed” about the opportunity for the church’s preschool students to interact with the senior residents at Brightview and the partnership with Kingstowne Communion, which came about through a fortuitous turn of events.
The Methodist church had been searching for a permanent home, but on the day that a previous option fell through, its pastor, Michelle Matthews, happened to meet Purdy’s wife, Jeannine Deem Purdy, for lunch at Grounded Coffee down the street in the Shops at Telegraph Village.
“They were talking, and Jeannine said, ‘Have you ever thought about maybe coming and joining us?’ Michelle was like, ‘Sure,'” Purdy said. “We started the discussions, and that became a reality, and we’re very excited to be partnering with them.”
Going forward, Virginia Hills Church is holding Sunday services at 11:15 a.m., while Kingstowne Communion is meeting at 9:30 a.m.
In addition to leaders and members from both churches, the ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by Del. Garrett McGuire (D-17) and Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk, who represent Rose Hill in the Virginia House of Delegates and on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, respectively.
After the ribbon-cutting, Lusk lauded Virginia Hills Church for giving up part of its land to allow new housing for senior residents — a demographic that’s projected to soar over the next two decades. The church’s child care services also address a growing need in the community, he noted.
“They’ve been doing this for years, and they’ve provided this critical service, which makes a difference for so many,” Lusk said. “So, I’m just delighted that I’m able to be here to witness and to be a part of the ribbon cutting.”
With “Faith in Housing” legislation becoming state law on July 1, allowing affordable housing to be built “by right” on land owned by faith-based groups and certain nonprofits, Fairfax County will likely see more collaborations between religious organizations and developers in the future.
Expressing support for efforts to increase and diversify the county’s housing supply, Lusk says he’s looking to talk to any church or other organization in his district that “might be interested” in taking advantage of the newly streamlined zoning process.
He added, though, that securing community support for affordable housing projects remains a challenge, pointing to opposition to the redevelopment of the former Franconia Governmental Center site that was approved in March.
“I know we’ve got to be bringing the community in,” Lusk told FFXnow. “But we also have to do a better job of educating them on what this housing means and how it really helps our own kids who are graduating from schools. It helps our seniors. It helps all the residents, and for this community to continue to be a vibrant, thriving community, we’ve got to provide housing of all types.”
