Luxury Living In McLean, Virginia: The Most Upscale Suburb of DC

McLean Northern Virginia | All You Need To Know

McLean is located in Northern Virginia. It’s in Fairfax County, just 8 miles Northwest of Washington DC. It is next to Arlington, sharing its southeastern border with the edge of Arlington. McLean stretches beyond the beltway to Spring Hill Road on the western edge. The Dulles Toll Road is the southern border, the Potomac River is the northern / eastern border.

Outside of that, there’s also Tyson’s Corner, which is known for being the shopping mecca with its two separate malls and tons of retail. Some parts of Tyson’s have a McLean mailing address and some have Vienna. For this video I am including Tyson’s as well because McLean and Tysons are somewhat tied together. If you put Tysons into Google to see the boundaries, it fits in like a puzzle between McLean and Vienna. But if you click on anything to see an address it may have a McLean, it may be Tysons, it may be Vienna. Why?

About 10 years ago, they created the option for Tyson’s Corner businesses to use Tyson’s as an address. The reasoning behind this was to help the businesses create a brand around Tyson’s which is being revitalized with residential and office development. Buyers of these new condos may prefer a Tyson’s address as opposed to McLean which connotes large homes and estates.

There are multiple access points to get into McLean. Chain Bridge connects from the Palisades, you can take 495 or you can go from Georgetown over the Key Bridge up the GW Parkway to 123. There is also the newly built Silver Line metro which has stops in McLean, Tyson’s and Greensboro on Leesburg Pike / Route 7.

History

McLean is named after John Roll McLean, a one-time publisher and owner of the Washington Post. In the early 1900’s, he helped fund the railroad which connected McLean with DC. The line ran along what is now Old Dominion Road and crossed into DC at Chain Bridge.

Did You Know? The Mars company is headquartered in McLean. Unlike how say, Coke is headquartered in Atlanta and you see Coca Cola sponsorships and ads all over the place, we don’t feel that presence here in DC. I wish we did. I would love to have M&M’s on every corner. But Mars is a privately held company owned by the Mars Family.

Real Estate

Much of the housing in McLean is single family homes. Any single family home below $1M is going to be a teardown. The home prices in McLean start in the $1M’s but most are in the $2M to $4M range. Prices rise sharply here, with many homes over $10M, $20M, and one currently listed on the Potomac River for $50M.

House types vary tremendously. Many of the older colonial homes that used to be here have been torn down and McMansioned. Some of these homes are gorgeous. Some are…not. I was driving around McLean and passed a road which was filled with the ugliest houses I have seen in my life. And the house was the same, it was like someone came in with one house type and built a dozen of them. It was comical. I wanted to chronicle this for you, my favorite people.

Food

There are a ton of choices when it comes to Grocery Stores. There’s Safeway, Balduccis, Giant, Lidl, Whole Foods. Closer to Tyson’s there’s Wegmans and Harris Teeter as well.

Most of the restaurants in McLean are in the downtown commercial area. Japanese, Italian, pizza, Thai, Persian, Afghan, Middle Eastern – there are a lot of options off Old Chain Bridge. The restaurants in McLean have a small town feel to them, more mom and pop than the options in Tyson’s. By the malls there’s Founding Farmers, Fogo de Chao, Capital Grille, Maggiano’s. These are more of the chain restaurants but they are upscale chains.

Shopping & Fun

Wolftrap is a national park for performing arts. Lots of concerts happen here during the season, May – September, of all music types, dance performances, opera.

#livingindc
#livinginwashingtondc
#movingtowashingtondc
#washingtondcrealestate
#dcrealestate

Subscribe to my channel here:
✅    / dcrealestatemama  

If you have any questions about this video, leave a comment! If you have questions about real estate in DC, Maryland or Virginia, my contact info is below.

=====
Melissa Terzis
📲 (202) 253-9105
📩 [email protected]
🌐 https://www.dcrealestatemama.com/
TTR | Sotheby's International Realty
1515 14th St NW
Washington, DC 20005
Office: (202) 234.3344

Follow on Facebook:   / melissaterzisrealtor  

Follow in Instagram:   / melissa_terzis  

Thank you for watching! =)

Melissa Terzis | DC Real Estate Mama