The Reston Home Tour returns this fall with five stops highlighting local history

Reston history will take center stage at the 19th annual Reston Home Tour on Oct. 16.

This year’s tour will feature five houses, including the first home built on Lake Thoreau (before the lake was even there), a work by Restonian architect Ken Bonner, and the Craftsman-inspired The Kensington Reston that overlooks the 11th fairway of Reston National Golf Course.

The tour is hosted by the Reston Museum and is self-guided. Each ticket includes a guide book with descriptions and a map. A boxed lunch will be available for purchase at The Kensington, a local assisted living community.

Additionally, the museum will be open to the public with its newest exhibit “Early Reston Home Interiors” on display.

Masks are required on the tour, and tickets are available now for $30, though museum members can get tickets at a discounted price. Docents and volunteers are still needed.

Reston Museum Executive Director Alex Campbell says it’s wonderful to have the home tour back after it was canceled last year.

“The Reston Home Tour is an important event as it showcases the creativity and ingenuity that Restonians implement within their home through modern renovations,” she wrote in an email to Reston Now. “…The tour is a reminder that not only did Reston begin as a community that embraced architectural variety and modern design, it is still today a community where Restonians pursue modern and forward-thinking design for their homes.”

It is the Reston Museum’s biggest fundraisier and one of its most popular events, Campbell notes.

The Reston Museum reopened to visitors about a year ago after being closed for a number of months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 24-year-old museum has embraced the digital world in order to stay afloat.

Staff have started to do more in-person events recently, including an outdoor “Storytime for Little Historians.”

Campbell says the home tour is an “an important contributor in supporting our mission to preserve and share Reston’s history.”

Previous iterations of the Reston Home Tour have showcased a five-decade-old Dutch Colonial and a 1960s Hickory Cluster townhouse.