Offbeat Postscripts: A Haunting at the Overlee Community Center

By Angela H. Eng, Offbeat NOVA

When I was growing up in Virginia Beach, I always heard tales of a friendly ghost at a local restaurant called Tandom’s Pine Tree Inn. The building had been around for decades—it was only natural that a ghost story go with it. Allegedly, the ghost liked to play tricks on staff. A friend’s mother, who waitressed there for time, told a story about plates being stacked one way, leaving the room, then returning to see them stacked another way. Another time, she said, she came in to open the restaurant one morning and all the chairs in the dining room were haphazardly strewn around, even though the person who had closed the night before swore they were neatly put away.  

Eventually, that building was torn down to make way for progress (a Wawa, to be exact) and the stories of the friendly trickster ghost faded away.  It made me wonder whether Northern Virginia had any tales of friendly ghosts—after all, cities like Alexandria had been around for much longer than Virginia Beach. 

Imagine my surprise when I learned that the upscale Overlee Community Center and pool in Arlington was purported to have a friendly ghost hanging about.

The Overlee (meaning “north of Lee Highway”)¹ Community Center is a private club that was founded in 1957. It has multiple pools, park land, sports areas, and a clubhouse. The clubhouse is the item of interest in all the stories I read—though it is not the clubhouse that is standing today. The former clubhouse was a historic home, known as the Febrey-Kincheloe house, that served as the clubhouse for the association until 2012, when the pool members voted 55 to 4 to renovate the complex.² Part of the renovations included tearing down the historic home and building a new clubhouse. 

The Febrey family was the first to own the historic home. The Febreys bought a 176-acre tract of land in 1849; in 1890 Ernest Febrey built a three-bedroom home that overlooked an apple orchard and creek.³  Shortly after he built the home, his wife gave birth to a little girl, Margaret. Margaret, unfortunately, passed away on January 15, 1913, at the age of 14. She had Pott’s disease, a rare infection of the spine.⁴ Supposedly the family no longer used the home after Margaret died. She is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, not far from the site of her home, with her mother and infant brother.

In 1947, a lady named Florence Kincheloe bought the property. She converted the home into what was known as the Crestwood Sanitarium, a home for retired Washington dignitaries.⁵ Little details exist about the Crestwood, though a publication from the Arlington Historical Society notes that “it was a burden to manage [the sanitarium] and that the population in the area was too young to need a nursing home,” so she sold the property in 1957.⁶ Soon after, it became the Overlee Community Center. 

Over time, the creek and the orchard disappeared, but the house remained. However, it seems that more than just the house stuck around. 

A former swim coach that lived in the Febrey-Kincheloe house in the late 70’s and early 80’s reported hearing weird noises (but never seeing anything) that reminded him of the ballroom dancing scene in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.⁷ One of the Overlee Board members mentioned “other ghost stories” that included “music and strange noises and things . . . most people believe it’s from the time it was a sanitarium.”⁸

Sounds like something straight out of a Stephen King novel, if you ask me. 

However, there is another well-known ghost that is said to haunt the property. 

Multiple people have reported seeing the ghost of a young girl wandering the grounds. Described as chatty and friendly, she was said to enjoy playing with other children at the pool.⁹ When the property was renovated and the original Febrey home torn down, construction workers reported seeing a girl in Victorian clothing climbing through the construction debris and walking around the site.¹⁰ Others reported talking to a young girl in “strange clothing” that they later identified as Margaret.¹¹ One former manager recounted odd happenings, such as a lifeguard chair swiveling on its own, the sound of rocks being thrown into construction equipment, or the shuffling of feet in a breezeway.¹² One construction worker even quit after he sighted her in the house. He went in to find her, came out, then saw her on the steps. He turned away for a moment, and she was gone. A coworker said that the worker who sighted the girl immediately packed his stuff and left the site.¹³

No one reported any malice or frightful happenings, just small, slight occurrences that suggested there was more at work than just an active imagination. Even so, there have been few sightings of Margaret since 2012. An article from Arlington Connection, dated 2013, asks, “Where are you, Margaret?”¹⁴ and recounts one story of a sighting.

The friendly ghost of my childhood, the Pine Tree Inn ghost, disappeared after the building was razed. The stories and occurrences stopped the second the building came down (though I’d love to know if anyone’s ever encountered something weird at the WaWa). Like the Pine Tree Inn ghost, the ghost of Margaret Febrey seems to have disappeared with the destruction of her home. 

The board members didn’t take any chances when the house was demolished, though. They left flowers and a note that said, “Dear Margaret, we are building you a new house. Please come visit any time.”¹⁵

And maybe, she will. 

But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Footnotes:

1. Zak, Dan. “Haunting at Overlee pool in Arlington shows past is still part of community’s future,” The Washington Post, June 13, 2012. Accessed April 24, 2021, LINK. 
2.  Zak, “Haunting at Overlee.” 
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. n.a. “The Spirits at Overlee,” Rediscover Haunted Arlington. October 28, 2019. Accessed April 24, 2021. LINK. 
6.  Vogel, Sophie. “Growth of a Suburban Village: Fostoria, Overlee Knolls & Westover, 1730-1998,” Arlington Historical Society Magazine. October 1998. Accessed April 24, 2021. LINK. 
7.  Zak, “Haunting at Overlee.” 
8.  Pyzyk, Katie. “Workers Report ghost Sightings at Overlee.” ARLnow. March 16, 2012. Accessed April 24, 2021. LINK.
9.  Zak, “Haunting at Overlee.”
10.  n.a.“Spirits at Overlee.”
11.  Ibid.
12.  Zak, “Haunting at Overlee.” 
13.  “Arlington ghost: construction worker quits after Margaret Febrey sighting.” YouTube video. November 9, 2012. Accessed April 24, 2012. LINK. 
14.  McMorrow, Michael. “Where Are You, Margaret? The Arlington Connection. Connection Newspapers. September 11, 2013. Accessed April 24, 2021. LINK. 
15.  McMorrow, “Margaret.”