Cherrydale roofs: what the historic nomination and county papers say about houses and the Lee Highway strip

How one neighborhood ended up with two different kinds of roof

Cherrydale sits in central Arlington, roughly between Maywood and Lyon Village on one side and Waverly Hills on the other. The nomination says Lee Highway bisects the community. That one fact explains the roofing: south and north of the road are pitched house roofs, and along the road are low masonry buildings with flat roofs.

• Pitched roofs on the houses: hips and gables, mostly asphalt shingles, a few slate roofs and some Queen Anne rooflines with intricate pitches.
• Flat roofs on the strip: one- and two-story masonry buildings with parapets and show windows.

The form was prepared in November 2002 by EHT Traceries for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. It covers 286.310 acres and counts 951 contributing and 317 noncontributing buildings, with a period of significance of 1898 to 1953. It also says that by 1936 the district held about 423 residential buildings, twenty-five commercial structures and two service stations. A roof described in 2002 may have been replaced since, so treat every roof entry below as a clue to the building, not a statement about today's covering.

Is the house roof record all asphalt shingle?

On Colonial Revival houses the nomination says the roofs are "presently clad primarily in asphalt shingles" and were originally sheathed in a variety of materials. For the Queen Anne houses it describes roofs that rise from a main hip or gable in a number of intricate pitches, and it places the earliest of these dwellings mostly on the blocks south of Lee Highway.

For the surrounding 1940s subdivisions, with their uniform side-gable houses, see the guide to the 1940s subdivision roofs. Cherrydale's form reads as a catalogue rather than a pattern.

Why parapets matter

The nomination calls the Lee Highway development low-scale, one or two stories, and says "Many of the masonry structures have flat roofs with parapets". It adds that altered commercial buildings were left out of the district, and that the non-historic buildings that replaced others are also one or two stories with flat roofs and large show windows. Selected inventory entries show how varied the roof forms are.

Source: Cherrydale Historic District nomination, building inventory (VDHR 000-7821), read October 26, 2026. Recorded in 2002; current roofs may differ.

Two points come out of the table. First, "flat" on this strip is not one system: a parapet can hide a flat deck, can be capped in aluminum, or can front a pitched roof. Second, the form says nothing about membranes, drains or scuppers. Our pages on flat roof systems and metal roofing set out the options, and the owner of a storefront can book a phone consultation to talk through what is visible from the street.

The National Park Service roofing brief says built-in gutters can drain through the roof surface or through a parapet, that water pools where slope is inadequate or traps clog, and that flashing failure is usually a major cause of roof deterioration. A written scope for a parapeted roof should therefore name the edge, wall and drain details, not only the surface material.

Which Cherrydale roofs does the county review under local rules

Arlington keeps a National Historic Places list, which the county calls "an honorific list", and a separate list of Local Historic Districts. Cherrydale Historic District is on the first. It is not on the second: the county's local list names the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire House (1919) as the only Cherrydale entry.

The distinction matters because the county requires a Certificate of Appropriateness for exterior alterations inside a local district, with an exception for routine maintenance, repairs and replacements using the same materials. The National Park Service, for its part, says federal listing places no restrictions on a non-federal owner unless federal assistance is involved, and that state or local laws may apply. Put together, a Cherrydale house is not reviewed by the county's board because of the National Register listing alone. Confirm your address with the county's Historic Preservation program, since the county list is the one that governs.

A Cherrydale house, a storefront and an apartment building each follow a different permit path

The county sorts a roof job by building type first. Its residential page covers houses and townhouses; apartment buildings with three or more dwelling units are treated as commercial, and a residential permit is limited to detached one- or two-family homes and townhouses of no more than three stories.

The full county table, the state code exemptions and the ZIP-level housing mix are in the Arlington roofing hub. This page adds only what Cherrydale's papers change.

The Cherrydale Fire House roof, read from its own nomination and the district form

The one Cherrydale building on both the county local list and the National Register is the Fire House at 3900 Lee Highway. Its own 1995 nomination describes a two-and-a-half-story building with a hipped roof clad in asphalt shingles, gabled dormers covered in vinyl siding and two slender interior brick chimneys with corbelling. A footnote says a 1994 information form found the dormers were not in historic photographs, which indicates they were added later.

That makes it a useful reading example. A local-district property's roof is reviewed by what the document says is original, what was added, and whether a repair uses the same materials. The nomination does not say what the county would decide for a future re-roof. That answer comes from the county.

What the National Weather Service record says about July 1, 2021 roofs

A separate thunderstorm-wind report from that evening, at Lee Highway and North Lexington Street, says "The roof of a commercial building was partially peeled off". The record lists Barcroft as the nearest place, not Cherrydale, so it shows what wind did to a Lee Highway commercial roof nearby, not what happened in the district.

Why it pays to confirm these points before any quote is written

• Whether the address is a house, a storefront or a building of three or more dwelling units, because that sets the county permit path.
• Whether the address or building name is on the county's Local Historic Districts list, not only the National Register list.
• For a parapeted flat roof: how the parapet cap, wall flashing and drains will be detailed in writing.
• For slate or tin: whether the covering is original, and whether the repair uses the same material.
• How much decking, if any, will be replaced, against the 256 square foot line.

Roofers of Arlington installs, repairs and replaces roofs. See our roofing services and roof replacement pages, then use Book a phone consultation and have the address, building type and what you can see ready.