The largest private landowner in Loudoun County, Virginia, Greenvest LC — the focus of a series of bruising development battles — has defaulted on a $130 million loan, putting the majority of its real estate holdings into a foreclosure auction scheduled for Tuesday at the county courthouse. Read more
Firefighters and sprinkler manufacturers are locked in a fierce national battle against home builders over a proposed requirement for sprinklers in all new homes and townhouses, with a crucial vote scheduled in Virginia early next week. Read more
The Wheatland Manor House was built 35 years before the Revolutionary War. The farmland surrounding it served as a focal point of a small community during the Civil War and is today a symbol in a new land war, one that has spawned accusations of corruption, fraud, and deception, as developers, preservationists, and politicians wrestle over the future of historic Loudoun County, Virginia. Read more
Salvatore J. Cangiano enjoys a reputation as a shrewd land speculator and developer, one who isn’t shy about pressing his ownership rights through litigation — “I’m very competitive” — or, perhaps, just by sheer force of will. And pretty much all those descriptors were on display in the rough-and-tumble struggle that ended with him in possession of Wheatland Farms in Loudoun County, Virginia. Read more
Diana Johns had just moved into her four-bedroom, 6,500-square-foot Leesburg, Virginia, home in 2002 and was thrilled with its elegant pillars, golf-course views, and expansive, sunny rooms. But the bleating alarm tied to the home’s “nonconventional” septic system signaled that beneath the surface, something was terribly wrong. Read more
Officials in one of the nation’s fastest growing counties defeated a plan to purchase nearly 100 acres of land, at a cost of more than $200,000 per acre, from the largest developer in the county after the Center for Public Integrity reported that the developer was simultaneously claiming the land was worth only about $35,000 per acre for tax purposes. Read more
Civil War remains a reality in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Abundant historical and cultural touchstones of that era dot the landscape. Scores of villages that bore witness to battles remain, some nearly unchanged. Activists work to preserve the churches that served as hospitals and graveyards for soldiers during the war. Families tell stories of forbears who fought here, while descendants of carpetbaggers still possess antebellum estates. About 30 miles from Washington, D.C., Loudoun County was just far enough from the Union lines to feel a part of Jefferson Davis’s Confederacy, yet close enough that sections of the county changed hands repeatedly during the war. Read more
Halfway between the battlefield at Gettysburg and Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, U.S. Route 15 passes through Loudoun County, an area that may be less known, but is no less steeped in American history. Read more

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