What Kirkpatrick Farms asks for
Kirkpatrick Farms, an association whose own site places it in Aldie, keeps a list of the exterior changes that need an architectural application. Decks, fences, patios and walkways, and additions lead it, as changes to the exterior of a home or yard, and among the others are paint and stain color changes, light fixtures of a new style or color, lattice or privacy screens, and the removal of any living tree. An outdoor fireplace is not named on its own. A stone fireplace with a chimney is a change to the yard, though, and the association says that when a home is sold, every improvement on the outside must have an approved application signed by its Architectural Committee.
The application asks for architectural plans or scale drawings with elevations and dimensions, a color photo of every material, a copy of the property plat showing where the project goes, and photos of the lot showing the location and its relation to the neighboring properties. Grading plans join them when the work changes the lot's grade or drainage. Every application carries the signatures of the four most affected neighbors.
The association also looks at the lots themselves. It runs annual inspections to keep the community's appearance, and lot files are checked to confirm the improvements on each lot. At a sale, the resale documents include the association's inspection of the outside of the home.
Picturing a fireplace at the edge of your patio?
Send us a photo of the yard, and we will bring stone samples to the visit.
How we prepare an outdoor fireplace in Kirkpatrick Farms
The chimney is the part the neighbors will see, so the drawings show the fireplace's height and width in elevation, and the plat marks where it stands in relation to the house and the lot lines. Color photos of the stone, the cap and the hearth go with them, and lights on the fireplace go in as fixtures. If a tree has to come out to make room, its removal goes on the application too. The four neighbors sign before the application goes in. How the firebox, chimney and hearth are built is on our outdoor fireplaces page.
The Village of Aldie historic district
Loudoun County keeps a historic district for the Village of Aldie, an early 19th-century linear village built along the Little River Turnpike, now Route 50. Most exterior changes to a property inside the district need the Historic District Review Committee's approval before the project begins, and in a historic district the Planning Department's certificate of appropriateness has to be issued before any permit can be. Repair or replacement in kind is outside the committee's review. The district is the village, not every Aldie address, so we check the parcel before a fireplace is drawn, and the county's Planning and Zoning staff answer questions about it.
Which office permits the work in Aldie?
The county's. Aldie is not among Loudoun's seven incorporated towns, and the county maps it as a census place, an unincorporated community, so its Department of Building and Development issues the permits with no town office ahead of it. Our Loudoun County page covers the county's permits.