It was 1969 and Catherine Hudgins, a teacher at the time, was on a house hunt with her husband, Willie. The African-American couple visited communities across Northern Virginia, but they struggled to find a "home for our type of family."
This was Virginia, in the wake of the Massive Resistance movement and a U.S. Supreme Court decision only two years earlier that struck down a state law banning mixed-race marriages.
Nearly two months into her search for a welcoming community, Hudgins was nudged by a friend to Reston — an inclusive, planned suburban community whose founder, Robert E. Simon, declared as one of his seven principles: "That the importance and dignity of each individual be the focal point for all planning, and take precedence for large-scale concepts."
Hudgins had never heard of Reston before. She was blown away by what she found, by Simon's vision.
"His ideas were really forward thinking," said Hudgins, a Reston resident for 46 years, and Fairfax County's Hunter Mill District supervisor since 1999.
Simon died Monday at his Reston home at the age of 101. Only one year ago, he helped to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the innovative community he carved from the western Fairfax countryside — a community that is now home to roughly 60,000 residents, a thriving office market and a vibrant, soon to be Metro-accessible town center.
"Bob was a friend," Hudgins said. "It was wonderful having him as that. For those of us who call this place home, I think it's appropriate for us to say thank you."
Simon was "never without an opinion," Hudgins said, "and he shared it often." In 2012, at the age of 98, he testified before the Fairfax County board in support of a proposal to build a 23-story, 325-foot office and retail tower at 1760 Reston Parkway.
“I’ve been involved since the beginning,” Simon said at the time. “In those days, constituents consisted of two, three thousand head of cattle. That was great, because the supervisors and I then didn’t have to listen to naysayers. I think this is simple.”
Simon was active in Reston policy to the end, ensuring his vision of a well-planned, diverse, live-work-play community was carried out by the county and by the developers that now control the 6,750-acre tract that bears his initials.
"I think the best way we can honor him is to model his principles," Hudgins said. "Reston is an economically thriving, as well as a socially thriving, community. The more of that we have, the better off we are."