Relocating to NVA-Where to Live w/horse

[OBX_WALKER]

Husband and I are leaving the OBX for NVA. We are searching for a rental that either has horse facility or a rental that is inexpensive enough to afford board. THEN we will buy something once we figure out WHERE to live. He will be working in the Frederick MD area in about a year. So where would be a good place to look to purchase within commuting distance to Frederick? We would like to stay in VA if at all possible.

Oh and by the way if anyone knows a a rental within 50MI of Chantilly let me know!

Thanks all-

[Stacie]

If you are working in Frederick, they have WONDERFUL horse properties up there.

[IronwoodFarm]

Is there something magic about Chantilly? I happen to live there during the week, so I am curious because 50 miles from Chantilly will create an epic commute at times. Chantilly to Frederick will be bad enough. I do agree that there are some very nice horse properties for rent/sale in around Frederick.

My farm is 50 miles from Chantilly door to door. I will never attempt a commute from there – we are talking several hours BOTH ways depending on the time of day. If everything is perfect – 1 hour and that does not happen often.

Your best bet would be to board the horse, rent something and get some first hand experience living here. It is a wonderful area, but you should look around before you buy.

[Mango20]

If he’s heading to Frederick and you’re SURE you want to stay in VA, then I’d look around the Leesburg area, so he can go up Route 15 to get there.

[creseida]

Just curious, but have you been to this area before? Have you experienced the hellish night mare of Northern VA/DC/MD traffic? Trust me, beach week in the OBX is nothing compared to the daily commuting hell that is the DC metro area.

Perhaps you could elaborate on a few things.

1. Why is it so important to live in VA vs MD?
2. What is so critical about Chantilly? Did you just look at a map and pick that town or is there something significant about being within 50 miles?
3. Are we talking 50 miles driven or 50 miles as the crow flies?
4. Define “affordable”. Affordable in NC is not the same as affordable here.

The biggest thing you will be dealing with if you choose to live in VA and hubby work in MD is the Potomac River. There are a limited number of river crossings, all of which are overused. The above poster referenced living in Leesburg to work in Frederick and commuting up Route 15. Sounds easy, right? Looking on a map, it’s a breeze. Ha.

Route 15 is a two lane road. One lane goes north and one goes south. It’s a 2-lane parking lot even on weekends.

Leesburg area to Fred MD area gives you 3 choices to cross the river: the aforementioned Route 15 at Point of Rocks (one lane crossing the river in each direction), White’s Ferry which takes 21(?) cars at a time across the river. Yes, it’s an actual ferry. And the Lovettsville to Brunswick MD crossing. Again a 2 lane road, one lane in each direction. That’s it. Seriously. The only other choices would be you either take the DC Beltway (495) across the river or go to Charlestown, WV and take 340 across the river.

I would strongly recommend you and hubby come up here and drive around for several days, especially during rush hour. Rush hour is 5 am to 10 am and 3 pm to 7 pm. On good days. One accident and you’re screwed. If they mention the “S-word”, you’re screwed. (snow)

Seriously, coming from someone who has lived here all her life, you would be a LOT better off finding property in MD unless you are absolutely compelled to live in VA. You would still be within 50 miles of Chantilly.

[rustbreeches]

I’m from what is now considered part of NOVA, I would much prefer to live in Frederick if that is where your DH will be working. Much better chance of getting a nice property up there than anywhere near Chantilly. The whole area around Frederick is gorgeous!

[lachelle]

Ugh, NOVA…

I live in Central, VA. But I agree with everything that creseida said.

[gottagrey]

I agree, ditch the notion of living in Northern VA and live, work and play in Frederick area - Frederick has been named one of the best places to live by several sources (google, i cant’ think of sources off top of head). It’s a delightful town/city with some great shopping and excellent restaurants including 2 owned by Top Chef Brian Voltaggio (sp?) And it’s dog friendly! Don’t get me wrong, I love Virginia but relocated to MD for work and horse (yes, it is easier to ride in MD than VA if you live/work inside or near Beltway)

There are plenty of top level H/J show barns, eventing barns, dressage barns -if you fox hunt - there’s Middletown/Newmarket, Potomac, Goshen and Howard County Hunts, and western or pleasure barns.

Frederick is not as expensive as neighboring Montgomery County. You could happily rent a house and board horse while looking for property to rent or purchase or you might just be happy boarding and buy house.

There is absolutely no way I would ever commute from Chantilly to Frederick unless i owned Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

[Dr_Doolittle]

[QUOTE=gottagrey;7828311]
I agree, ditch the notion of living in Northern VA and live, work and play in Frederick area - Frederick has been named one of the best places to live by several sources (google, i cant’ think of sources off top of head). It’s a delightful town/city with some great shopping and excellent restaurants including 2 owned by Top Chef Brian Voltaggio (sp?) And it’s dog friendly! Don’t get me wrong, I love Virginia but relocated to MD for work and horse (yes, it is easier to ride in MD than VA if you live/work inside or near Beltway)

There are plenty of top level H/J show barns, eventing barns, dressage barns -if you fox hunt - there’s Middletown/Newmarket, Potomac, Goshen and Howard County Hunts, and western or pleasure barns.

Frederick is not as expensive as neighboring Montgomery County. You could happily rent a house and board horse while looking for property to rent or purchase or you might just be happy boarding and buy house.

There is absolutely no way I would ever commute from Chantilly to Frederick unless i owned Chitty Chitty Bang Bang[/QUOTE]

:lol: :lol: Or a jump jet :winkgrin:

OP, you are getting lots of good advice here; I would carefully heed it! I live in the heart of Chantilly :mad:, and the misery and frustration of my daily existence (having to drive out to horse country from here) is something I wouldn’t WISH on my most hated foe. Unfortunately, my husband and I are kind of “stuck” here (though we don’t own), and since we’ve lived here the growth around our immediate area (especially within the past 5 years or so) has been nothing short of obscene. I’ve lived in the general area for 50 years, and it’s no longer recognizable.

Apparently the wantonly greedy developers have no qualms about lining their pockets at the expense of sanity and logic, and have no discernible conscience.

Everywhere is gridlock, all the time. Unless you are on the road early Sunday morning (or in the middle of the night, when they sometimes do construction–at which point you are “effed”), you will encounter traffic, traffic, and more traffic. And construction, and lane closures, without warning. Think LA! Only without freeways; the infrastructure around here was designed for farmland access decades ago, many roads are two lanes (including 15 to Frederick), hence all the ceaseless and ongoing construction in a mostly fruitless attempt to keep up with the increased (and increasing!) congestion. And yet they continue to build, and build.

STAY FAR AWAY if you possibly can, and there is no reason not to choose beautiful Frederick (still somewhat rural, yet with nice amenities) to live and work and keep your horse! With luck, you will get 5-10 more years out of it before it turns into “everywhere else around here.”

[IPEsq]

There are lots of horse properties in MD much more easily commutable to and/or in Frederick. The commute from NoVA to Frederick would be awful, and as far out as Chantilly would be really awful. For horses and rent, your dollars can go a bit farther in a more commutable location to Frederick than in NoVA as well.

[WNT]

I spent a summer out near Brunswick, MD working at a farm. The barn manager and I made the drive to Chantilly once to saddle shop at Dover. The drive, at midday, was awful. IIRC, we crossed at Lovettsville, took 9 to Route 7 outside of Leesburg, dropped down 15 to 50 and over to Chantilly. This was about 7 years ago, middle of the day, and I want to say it took every bit of 1.5 hours one way. As Dr Doolittle said, it has only gotten worse. Construction on 50 near Gilberts Corner is through the roof, and Leesburg is not much better. Congestion is the name of the game, and there are no back ways, especially crossing the Potomac.

I later moved to the Middleburg area, worked at Dover and most of my commute was spent trying to turn left onto 50. 20 miles =/= 20 minutes around here. I ended up where I work now after moving to Warrenton, and I refused to drive east of Haymarket. There are only a couple of things that will get me east of there: the movie theater, Cracker Barrel and the used book store in Manassas.

Unless the Chantilly requirement is job or family related, look in Maryland.

[gottagrey]

Another thing I forgot about Frederick area and more specifically Montgomery county - the area has a huge agricultural preserve which means the farm land \ within the Ag Reserve is protected. This will help prevent that area from becoming vast spans of tract housing like we see happening in NVA. Though in Clarksburg and Urbana are both experiencing construction booms so lots of tract homes but they look pretty nice and those areas are a great location to numerous boarding facilities and easy commute to Frederick. If you’re looking to buy a place - even on the PA side of Frederick, land is still pretty reasonably priced and frankly a lot of people commute from PA to Frederick (Ft. Detrick and Bechtel though Bechtel is moving 1,000 jobs to NoVA)

[fourfillies]

Or come north to PA. Much easier 50 miles. Lower COL for you and the horse.

[Alternative_Rox]

I lived in No Va a long time ago. Mid 80s. It was Hell back then. I have been back only rarely and it is nightmarish now.

The only thing that would make me even consider living in the DC area would be that a very rich relative stipulated in their will that I -HAD- to live in No Va for a year in order to claim my inheritance.

Believe me, that inheritance had better be well into 7 figures for me to even consider it.

Wonder where the OP is? Did we scare her off the DC area?

[gypsymare]

Ditto all the above but I’ll also add that Frederick is still pretty seedy. There are a few nice streets with great restaurants and parks and cool architecture, but in close proximity to ghetto and drug infested areas. I lived right on South Street for a year near Ice St. Noisy all times of night with drunks walking down the street. Drug deals in the alleys, cops chasing people through my yard.

Definitely would not want a kid in that school system but it would be a fun place to rent short term for a young couple. And traffic is still terrible around the 70/15 junction. I moved out of there last year and did not look back. If I had to live near Frederick I’d look towards Middletown or south along the route towards Leesburg. North is Thurmont, not much to do there but pretty country. East gets progressively more expensive and overdeveloped unless you head northeast and there is some nice country and farms in that direction.

Chantilly is a completely unreasonable commute. That would be a special kind of hell.

Will you have to commute anywhere or just DH? Frederick has a MARC train station. Don’t plan to drive anywhere on 270.

[JenEM]

I’m waiting for the OP to come back and explain the Chantilly thing, though at this point, I’m not holding out hope for more than 1 post from them :no:

If your husband’s going to be working in Frederick, there’s zero reason to move to Virginia. There’s plenty of good horse areas near Frederick, and on west towards Hagerstown (where I grew up) and north along 15 towards Gettysburg, that are far more affordable and offer better commutes. It really is a beautiful area with a relatively good cost of living versus a lot of places in the area, especially areas of Virginia equidistant from DC. I like where I live in NOVA, but I chose it for proximity to work. Traffic in this area is a nightmare, and I cannot imagine commuting 50 miles in it on a regular basis, though I know plenty who do; those are often people able to work non-traditional hours and avoid rush hours.

[IronwoodFarm]

This ^. I don’t understand the selection of Chantilly unless one of them was working there.

With NOVA in particular, you need to choose where you live with great care as the traffic gods are not benevolent here. As others have mentioned, there are some “special” rules we old timers know about the area. The first one is that if it is possible, do not include a river crossing in your commute. The second one is that if you have a commute of any length, then look at public transportation or carpool options as a fall back. The third when it snows even a little, the whole area shuts down and commutes become hell on earth. Stay home, work from home, take vacation, whatever.

[judybigredpony]

I live in MD and drive to VA frequently and WV…driving to and from Chantilly is as described if not worse…trying to get from one end of Frederick to the other is insane…those high travel times are generous…even at 2AM coming home from WV the roads are full of traffic…insane and Route 70 W off 695 coming from MD to VA and WV is unreal highly patrolled frequent accidents. The narrow twist roads thru Lovettsville in fog and bad weather treacherous!!