Maywood roofs in Arlington: what the National Register nomination and county records say

The roof stock, counted from the nomination

The Maywood Historic District nomination was written in 2003 and describes 193 properties holding 300 buildings, structures and sites. Of the primary resources, 155 are contributing and 38 are not, and every contributing primary resource is a freestanding single-family dwelling. The registration form lists the roof material as metal (tin) and asphalt.

The inventory part of the document gives each house a short paragraph, and almost every paragraph names the roof. Reading those paragraphs as a list gives the figures above. The nomination is scanned text, so the counts come from the extracted text and are approximate.

Own approximate count from the extracted text of the nomination (VDHR 000-5056), opened October 26, 2026.

The shape of those figures is the useful part. Metal is the older and rarer covering, and asphalt is the working majority. A Maywood owner is far more likely to be asking about an asphalt roof on a 1910s or 1920s frame than about a historic metal one, but the metal examples are what the document singles out as architecture.

Roofs the nomination describes by address

These are the nomination's own examples. They describe the district as recorded in 2003, not the roofs on those houses today, and they are not a statement about any work by Roofers of Arlington.

2300 North Lincoln Street

A brick four-square built about 1906, before Maywood was platted around it. The nomination describes a hipped roof clad in pressed metal shingles, a front-gable dormer clad in asbestos shingles, and a wrap-around porch with a half-hip roof also in pressed metal shingles.

3412 and 3415 21st Avenue North

Queen Anne houses described with a compound gable roof and a cross-gable roof, both sheathed in pressed metal sheets. The nomination lists pressed-metal shingles on the roof among the Queen Anne style's elements in Maywood.

3613 21st Avenue North and 2213 North Kenmore Street

Two near-twin four-squares. The nomination says they feature a standing-seam metal roof and a two-bay front porch on turned posts.

3607 22nd Street North

A stuccoed house recorded with a hipped slate shingle roof, the only slate entry.

2817 23rd Street North

A stuccoed bungalow-Craftsman house with a cross-gable roof sheathed in wood shingles. The inventory style field says bungalow-Craftsman, while the narrative describes the same house as one of the Tudor Revival dwellings, with wood shingles on the roof.

Cottages, porches and outbuildings

The nomination says the 1930s infill houses are Tudor Revival and Colonial Revival in the cottage and Cape Cod forms, and that several dwellings are prefabricated mail-order houses from a national catalog company. Its roof descriptions for those later cottages are plainer than the Queen Anne entries: they are overwhelmingly asphalt shingle.

• Porch roofs are separate roofsThe nomination often describes a porch roof on its own line. The 1906 four-square has pressed metal on the porch as well as the house, while a house at 3610 21st Avenue North has asphalt on the main roof and a standing-seam copper porch roof. A scope that says only "roof" can miss that distinction.
• Dormers, bays and gablesHipped four-squares carry front dormers, Queen Anne houses carry complex gable roofs, and some bay windows have their own small roofs. Each of those is a junction a written scope should name.
• Garages and shedsGarages and sheds are described with gable roofs clad in asphalt shingles, and about 90 percent of the extant sheds date from after 1941. Contributing status is counted separately for these secondary buildings.

What a federal roofing brief adds

The nomination says what was on the roofs. It does not say how to treat them. For that, the National Park Service's Preservation Brief 4, "Roofing for Historic Buildings" (Sarah M. Sweetser, February 1978), is a federal reference on historic roofing. It is general guidance, not an Arlington rule.

• It says embossed tin shingles were popular throughout the country in the late 19th century, and that tin plate became the most common roofing material once rolling mills were established. That is the period just before Maywood's oldest houses were built.
• It says the spacing of seams on a standing-seam metal roof affects the building's scale and should match the original dimensions.
• It says that where a roof is readily visible, an alternative material should match the scale, texture and coloration of the historic one, and it names asphalt shingles as a common substitute made to copy wood, slate or tile.
• It recommends detail drawings or a sample mock-up so the contractor understands the scope, and says it should never be assumed that a modern roofer knows the historic details.

Where a roof is visible, the alternative material should "match as closely as possible the scale, texture, and coloration" of the historic roofing.

National Park Service, Preservation Brief 4, on visible roofs

The federal Standards for Rehabilitation (36 CFR 68.3), which the county says it uses where a local district has no approved design guidelines (see the Arlington hub), add that deteriorated features are repaired rather than replaced, and that a replacement feature should match the old in design, color, texture and, where possible, materials.

Where the papers stop

Maywood became a local historic district at the request of its community association, which asked in 1987, and the county granted it. That local status, not the National Register listing, is what brings a Certificate of Appropriateness for exterior alterations. The county's rule excepts routine maintenance, repairs and replacements using the same materials. The county decides applications through its Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board, with a Design Review Committee that advises, and an owner may appeal a denial to the County Board.

Two points stay open. The county's Maywood page links a design guidelines document that this page did not rely on, so nothing here says what it allows for a roof. And the county page does not spell out how "same materials" applies when the present covering differs from what the nomination recorded. Ask the county, and treat the Arlington hub as the place for the permit and historic-review path in full. The nomination is also a reason to read the hub's note that a National Register listing alone is honorific.

Questions to bring to any roofer

1. What is on the main roof now, what is on each porch, dormer and bay roof, and what is on the garage or shed?
2. Does the nomination entry for my address name the roof covering, and does the house look like that description today?
3. Has the county said in writing whether the planned work is a same-materials replacement or needs a Certificate of Appropriateness?
4. If a metal roof is involved, what seam spacing, panel or shingle size and finish does the written scope describe?
5. Will the roofer supply detail drawings or a sample, as the National Park Service brief recommends for visible historic roofs?
6. Who checks the decking, and does any decking replacement trigger the county's 256 square foot permit line?

Roofers of Arlington installs, repairs and replaces roofs, including flat roofs and metal roofs, in Arlington and nearby. For a Maywood house, book a phone consultation and have the address, the porch and dormer layout, and the nomination entry in front of you.

Related guides

• Roofing in Arlington, VA: permits, historic review and what each building type changes.
• Slate roofs in Arlington: what the historic papers say, for the one slate house the nomination records and others.
• Roofs in the 1940s subdivisions: the neighborhoods built after Maywood's period.
• Columbia Pike garden-apartment roofs: the same documents applied to apartments.
• Roof replacement, roofing materials and all services.